Dr. Taylor Cummings

I think it's gonna be helpful in terms of understanding

what to do when you feel alone, what to do when you feel like not even God is answering or there for you.

And that was really big for me.

And so, yeah, it had all about, it had everything to do with really dissecting the relationship that we have as black Americans to the institution and the establishment.

And if we're trying to get black students to belong, belong, belong to what?

Like literally belong to what?

What are we educating them towards?

What do we want them to be a part of?

And just understanding what it means to be free, you know, and sort of reclaiming that and having belonging within our own selves.

So that's the scope of it.

Even just, you know, starting with like little Ruby Bridges.

Was that really the best thing for that young girl?

Yeah.

And I don't want to speak in terms of that, but just having a critical eye to our history and understanding what that looks like.

So I problematize a lot of those things and just really asking questions about what it really means to belong.

And so I really landed on this idea of belonging to myself.

And so that's a big lane that I'm sort of carving out in Ed Psych, which a lot of my OGs are saying, yeah, this is very novel.

This is pretty original in the way that you're talking about belonging.

And so...

Yeah, I embargoed my dissertation for a few reasons.