When S. Kent Butler started out the Issues of Range with Dr. B podcast, he didn’t have a technological being familiar with of how to build a podcast. He only knew he desired to address the problem he saved hearing: UCF community associates did not normally know what their fellow colleagues and learners ended up up to.
“I didn’t know anything about podcasts, but I preferred to do a little something to present that we’re a group, and that we all work with each other.”
— S. Kent Butler
“People needed more transparency,” states Butler, UCF’s interim main fairness, inclusion and diversity officer. “I produced a mindful exertion to feel about how to arrive at out. … I did not know anything about podcasts, but I preferred to do some thing to show that we’re a community, and that we all perform jointly.”
Now in its 2nd semester of recording, Matters of Variety with Dr. B has recorded 25 episodes. Company have ranged from President Alexander Cartwright and Vice President for Student Advancement and Enrollment Providers Maribeth Ehasz to scholar leaders from an array of campus corporations.
For each factor, Butler has worked with the local community to provide the podcast to lifestyle. The intro audio was made by Assistant Professor of Music Alexander Burtzos, particularly for the demonstrate. And for every episode, Butler functions with Kavita Sawh ’13, coordinator in the Office environment of Variety and Inclusion, and university student interns to determine friends and produce every recording. Isabella Marchetta, a journalism main, and Azon Bonifacio, an promotion and community relations important served as interns very last semester, and Bonifacio will keep on this semester.
“I believe that that we can master so significantly from just chatting to each other,” he says. “That’s really the factor that I want folks to see. We can have all of these variations and still be related, and which is it.”
Episodes are obtainable to enjoy are living on YouTube every single Wednesday and Friday. We sat down with Dr. Butler to understand more about the podcast.
Laura J. Cole: With Martin Luther King Jr. Working day taking place following 7 days, what do you believe is MLK’s legacy and how does it inform the operate you do, exclusively this podcast?
Kent Butler: All my lifestyle I have been a person who has attempted to be a unifier. To see men and women for who they are and to permit that to advise whether they must be in my existence or not. As I started doing multicultural work — which I have been executing for a prolonged time now — it was seriously about bridging the gaps that we have in our lives.
“All my lifetime I’ve been a man or woman who has tried using to be a unifier.”
My history in counseling speaks to the reality that when folks are related, then you find out to see earlier stereotypes. That’s been my modus operandi: to get folks to hook up and to connect. We never often do that. But we need to have complicated dialogues. We have to talk. We can not run away from all those matters that are occurring in the earth and act as if we can just brush it under the rug and every thing will be ok. We have to be capable to speak about it.
At UCF, we’re related by means of all these diverse points, but except if you and I have a dialogue, we will not find out what they are and what we both equally might like. That’s what I would like to crack away from.
All of this is a portion of what culminates into what King talked about for the duration of his “I Have a Dream” speech.
LJC: How do you prepare to increase the present and your audience?
KB: My hope, when I 1st started off considering about what I required to convey to this campus, and what I’m still hoping to do is begin a collection that’s like a TED Chat in which persons can occur and converse about what they’re accomplishing for 15 to 20 minutes.
“It just doesn’t make perception for us to be on a campus with all this talent and not know what every other are performing.”
I’d enjoy to come across an auditorium on campus where by we can do that and movie them and have them be out on YouTube. What greater way of obtaining out what someone is doing in chemistry and what somebody undertaking in biology or engineering, small business, than to hear them inform their story? Proper now, it’s referred to as Range Talks in my head. We’ll see if it pans out, but we’re on the lookout for donors and individuals who are enthusiastic about it.
It just doesn’t make feeling for us to be on a campus with all this expertise and not know what just about every other are executing.
LJC: You have recorded 25 episodes so much. What has been your favorite second and what have you uncovered?
KB: Each of the exhibits have been impactful because I have acquired stuff from each of them.
I talked with the people from Hillel a few of weeks ago about Hanukkah and the discussion blossomed into so a lot additional. Now we’re talking about review abroad trips to Israel. These are the kinds of results that are interesting about carrying out the podcast. You open up the door to things that you could not have at any time regarded as or else.
In my place as the range officer, I am equipped to convey to the community these distinct voices. That has been the factor that I’m most proud of. It is not about the Business office of Range and Inclusion. It is not about me. It’s seriously about getting these voices out there and possessing people share their narratives.
“I wanted to be clear about who we are as a college, what we do, and rejoice that to the greatest of our means, and to provide information.”
I feel most likely the 1 I’ll keep on to the most is the one with [President] Alexander Cartwright. He was my very very first visitor and I figured out a large amount about who he was and his story in conditions of rising up in the Bahamas, finding his GED and then heading on to grow to be the president of a college. All those are the kinds of stories and items that I imagine arrive organically by way of acquiring these discussions.
LJC: In many of the podcasts, the discussions aren’t focused on matters of range, so why the title Issues of Range with Dr. B?
KB: 1st of all, it was a enjoy on the Business office of Diversity and Inclusion. That was just one portion of it. But I needed folks to know that there is something to be said about the simple fact that we have distinctive intersectionalities, all of us. We’re interconnected in so many various methods. I wanted to have that be the emphasis at the rear of it. I required to be clear about who we are as a university, what we do, and rejoice that to the most effective of our means, and to give details.
For illustration, I not long ago hosted Dr. [Michael] Deichen, [associate vice president for Student Health Services], to chat about what we’re dealing with with this pandemic and how we’re heading to be working with this as a college. What security actions does he say or propose that we have to have to place into position? Those are the types of things that I was hopeful that this podcast could symbolize and be about.
I have also brought in specialists who are not from UCF, these kinds of as a extremely great good friend of mine, Naomi Tutu, to examine problems associated to range and inclusion from her perspective.
But I also want to carry in people like Mayor [Buddy] Dyer and other Central Florida group leaders, so we can have a conversation about what they are doing and how UCF impacts their perform. It’s definitely going to be displaying our variety in terms of who we are as a college, not so a lot about race, but much more about lifestyle.
LJC: What is your hope for 2021?
KB: We cocoon ourselves into our places of basic safety, but I hope that we can take a look at further than that and get to know people today and welcome them into our protected areas with us.
“Be prepared to unlearn some of the lessons that have been taught to you that are false, that reduce you from conference the individuals who could seriously enrich your life.”
For case in point, individuals say, “I have an Asian pal,” or, “I have a Black good friend.” The factor I want to know then is do they appear to your household? You say you have mates, but is that any individual you just go out and fulfill for coffee, but then you go your independent techniques? How personal are you with the people that you say are your pals? Are they as intimate with you as your best good friend who might seem like you or come from the very same ethnic track record as you? How do we open the door up for individuals to connect and allow them selves to embrace people today and the attractiveness that is about them?
Go away your selfish inside guiding and enable the entire world feed you. Be keen to unlearn some of the lessons that have been taught to you that are bogus, that stop you from meeting the people who could genuinely enrich your life.
Some men and women will say that’s idealistic or what have you, but it’s worked in my everyday living to focus on the superior in the entire world — and I hope other people enable that for them selves.
