Kiang in “Crossing Boundaries, Building Community” brings forward the complications of being a tenure track professor while also trying to challenge academia and create communities with students that engages with race, power, and culture. In this challenge, Kiang reflects on the positionality of a particular professor as they rejected being the pillar of such a movement considering their tenure track position. Examining Kiang’s example, there is an interesting dynamic between responsible modes of community building with POC students/ faculty relationships and the tokenization's of POC faculty members in the workspace by their peers and students. How can these dynamics be examined and what are the implications for higher education institutions and the environment they create?
In “Crossing Boundaries, Building Community” Kiang describes his approach in the classroom as an adoption of Mae Tse Tung ’s basic organizing principle (unite with the advanced to win over the middle and isolate the backwards). When assessing his relationship with this framework he asks “Who are the advanced that I must not take for granted? Where can I have the most meaningful impact for both the short-term and long-term? As a scholar and educator that is attempting to break hegemonic practices in the classroom and academia, how do we further this discussion on who the “advance” represents in our daily practices?
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