In March, Dr Kelly Mack, national thought leader on STEM in higher education reform, and Stephanie Briggs, principal owner, Be.Still.Move., conducted an on-demand interview with questions designed by Leslie Tinios, Professor Emeritus the Community College of Baltimore County. Using the art of storytelling, Kelly and Stephanie share what it means to be careful/care-full collaborators.
I/We SEE the Future: Spirit Speaking Through Manifestation
Leslie Tinios: Tell me a bit about yourself?
Kelly Mack: For over three decades, I have been engaged in the work of empowering others to be their most brilliant selves—whether teaching students the core principles of human physiology, supporting the leaders around me, sharing wisdom with colleagues, coaching academics through the politics of change, or holding space for any of these individuals to heal and grow. In some ways, this work has been at the expense of my own healing and growth. In other ways, it has been the source of healing and growth.
Stephanie Briggs: I’ve been doing this work as a Contemplative Guide in some form for close to 35 years. As a retired academic, I understand the need to empower students. I eventually realized that I was not fulfilling the needs of my spirit, so I started a consulting business, Be.Still.Move., as a way of combining contemplative pedagogy in the classroom with my study of Buddhist wisdom. It was the heart-opening practice of Metta or Loving Kindness that allowed me to realize that, through my personal healing, my students were benefiting and healing as well. I later combined Buddhist and African/African American wisdoms, and the creative arts (music, sound, ritual, dance, movement, play, art) as an invitation for people to come together in community, and create sacred, safe spaces. Because my work is organic and intuitive, Be.Still.Move. was designed to focus on the needs of my client, using those skills which offered some amount of comfort and ease to those who worked with me.
KM: From what I can remember, my call to this work began with the simplest of prayers—Dear God, please help. Toward the end of my graduate studies, the ambiguity of a moving end date, the lack of financial resources, and a host of other peculiar situations and circumstances that young Black women often face within the academy became more of a burden than I thought I could bear. It led me to do the unthinkable, not just pray but pray and make a promise to God. My early lessons from the Catholic Church taught me that bargaining with God was the route to inevitable damnation. It was their position that our flawed humanity was a pre-determination of our inability to honor any promise to God. And a broken promise to God was nothing short of unconscionable. At least, that’s how my seven-year-old self interpreted it. My graduate student self was desperate for relief though. So, the promise I made to God was that if He were to get me out of the situation I was in—meaning graduate school—I would do all in my power to make sure as many others as possible would also make it out of the situations they were in. Indeed, God answered my prayer, and so began a journey that would find me in new situations, with leadership responsibilities for designing spaces and creating platforms from which others could catapult themselves toward the success they deserve.
What began as a simple prayer has now become a source of gratitude and a framework for aligning prayer, work, and purpose in ways that serve my greater good and that of others. Unlike that early, simple prayer of mine, today’s prayers are spirit-filled, not fear-led. And they are born not out of a burden but rather out of a Sunday-morning easiness that flows effortlessly when I let it. This is most evident in the collaborations I find myself in now—whether in life or work or the intersection of both.
SB: What I love about you, Kelly, is your unique connection to Black spirituality and how we intentionally work with the mystery of spirit, promises and goals. I was raised in the AMEZ church. I was a problematic Christian, asking far too many questions. All the “Whys?” challenged my mother and the church. But I loved the music. The AMEZ I attended in Hackensack, NJ, had a cathedral and a gospel choir. My mom, being more on the Episcopal side, sang the classical tunes (Hayden, Bach) of the Cathedral Choir. I loved the gospel choir and how they did the stomp, foot drag from the back of the church to their section, closest to the pianist. This was my foundation for understanding what it was to be Black in America. Through this lens, I entered into Buddhism to uncover the benefits of both Buddhist and African/African-American spiritual wisdoms as a catalyst for healing in the contemplative work I was creating.
LT: Kelly, can you share a bit more about the work you were doing that led you to Stephanie?
KM: We had launched our initiative in the summer of 2014 with funding from the Helmsley Charitable Trust. This project was to be like no other, offering a three-year professional development program to build the capacity of STEM faculty to change themselves, not just academic departments in ways that would foster the academic success of students from all walks of life. Near the end of the program—after much discussion that had turned to disagreement, which then evolved into consternation and irritation, and finally resolution and self-acceptance—this community was ready to take on a more significant challenge—changing themselves. No theoretical framework could ever fully inform this. And no curricular redesign toolkit could ever accomplish this. Rather, it required spirit work—the kind of work that many intellectuals often shy away from or dismiss as irrelevant to core science and engineering concepts. Spirit work needs a spirit guide, a wise one who can connect intellect with the soul.
LT: These were clearly some challenges that you were able to address. So, what brought you both together?
KM: I knew that this community of STEM faculty that I had had the privilege of leading was ready. How I arrived at Stephanie is a story that only the universe can tell. I can only imagine how our separate worlds had to be so carefully, strategically, and precisely organized that we could collide with one another in a certain moment in time when we could do the most good in the world together. I cannot speak to all of the lessons, burdens, or God-bargains that we had to live through, or how each one serves us now. I only know that had it been a day earlier, a moment sooner, or less one prayer, I would not have been ready.
SB: Wow! When I reflect on where I was at that time in my life, I was at the early stages of crafting a new career away from academia, at least as a professor. I originally thought I’d return to school and get my PhD, but my mom was ill and came to live closer to me, so I ended up caring for her for 10 years. Ten years later, I discovered Buddhism. I had already been incorporating a variety of contemplative practices into my English classroom, so it was an easy transition into mindfulness that was beginning to explode in the academic world. In 2016, I’d given three keynotes, and my life was changing. So, when I got a call from Kelly, with an invitation to offer two mindfulness sessions at her institute, I was both honored and terrified. Could I even admit to her that the first and only class I ever failed in high school was geometry? She asked me to lead a group of 90 individuals, who, until hearing what you said about their transformation, I was clear, did not choose me and were probably not the least interested in “mindfulness.” I was asked to lead two 90-minute sessions and I quickly entered into my most manic preparation mode. There were questions: What had they accomplished over the past 3 years? Were they ready for what I believed she was requesting regarding mindfulness? If I were to offer heart opening/loving kindness practices, was that something they could handle? This was a pivotal moment for me, working with someone I didn’t know, who swore that this group was ready for whatever I presented, and attempting to provide the outcomes she imagined.
LT: When you first met Stephanie, what did you see?
KM: I don’t remember our very first meeting, but I do remember SEEing her the first time. She looked to me to be one who was connected to herself and to spirit in ways that I desired for myself. The dreadlocks, the loose, comfortable clothing, the wide smile, the effortless banter—she had a different and deeper freedom than I did—but a freedom that I was ready for. Truth be told, we were all ready for it.
LT: When you first met Kelly, what did you see?
SB: When I first saw Kelly in person, I thought to myself, “This woman is the person my mother would have loved as a daughter.” She was pulled together, wore professional, well-tailored clothing, and every hair in place. I figured that she was a debutante, and my mother always wanted a debutante. At that moment, I was clear that to live up to whatever was expected of me was going to be my challenge.
We SEE us as One: Looking at Opposite Ends and Finding a Vantage Point
LT: Describe careful and care-full and explain how they showed up in your first collaboration?
KM: Like marriage, real collaboration doesn’t just happen. Nor should it be entered into lightly or without regard for one’s soul. In the academy, there are all kinds of collaborations. Some for convenience, some for gain, and, admittedly, some for maleficence. In my career, I’ve seen all of them. And when you’ve seen as much as I have and been the beneficiary or target as many times as I have, it’s easy to identify the care-full collaboration, which has three important dimensions. It’s cyclical, risk tolerant, shared expectations, risks, and care for the soul.
SB: I so understand that, as someone who had the opportunity to joyfully retire from academia. For me, as an “outsider academic,” a collaborative community is one that is based on trust where there is no intention of harm. It’s not that harm won’t occur, but if the community is grounded in practice, which is a goal established early on, then the community has the ability to hold space for the harm, and through listening and reflection, find a resolution that leads to a stronger, more care-full collaboration. This is not easily accepted in many academic settings.
KM: In the care-full collaboration, there is an unspoken but fully articulated agreement between collaborators that success is a joint effort, one where the rewards may not be evenly experienced. In the case of the care-full collaboration, success—whether it’s mine or yours—is not celebrated but nonetheless deeply valued and appreciated. For Stephanie and me, it was the success of a community of STEM faculty that held our attention. We each entered the space of that community, not with the intention to star in it or exploit it for mutual or individual gain, but with the intention to be of service to it. As convener of the space, my responsibility to the community was to create a container for deep introspection where strongly held values and worldviews could be questioned and tested alongside misplaced blame, judgment, misunderstanding, and lack of knowledge. Perhaps more importantly, the equally important responsibility I held as collaborator with Stephanie was to trust that I, not the community, was her responsibility. My care for them and her care for me collided, interlocked, and emerged as an elegant cycle of individual and collective wellbeing.
SB: I loved the idea of collision, interlocking, and emergence. I’d like to add, in that early stage, I was given permission to offer practices that could push emotional buttons, but Kelly indicated that they were ready, and I had to trust that. And yet, on the first day, I could feel the resistance, particularly when I asked folks to move away from their conference tables and to bring their chairs to the center of the room to create two community circles. As I listen to Kelly’s explanation, I admit that I “felt” her holding space for me. By the end of the first day, I’d made some inroads. During the second session, when I led a loving kindness practice, also known as “Just Like Me,” suddenly I was free from fear of the “what ifs.” There was a sense of the fullness of being present to and with Kelly and this diverse community of educators she had nourished and given space to flourish.
KM: Aside from their emphasis on wellness, care-full collaborators accept what’s unknown about the other, educate each other about it, and move in ways that leave each better off than they were before—at least to the extent humanly possible. Integrating spirit work into a space of scientists who are fully committed to and dependent on data and evidence was not without risk. In fact, the risk was quite significant. Either we could convince them that examining themselves with compassion was worthwhile or we could be scoffed at, or worse, thought of as insignificant to higher education. The latter are particularly salient to us as Black women in the academy who are often straddled with presumptions of incompetence.
SB: Yes, I agree. For Black women, we were asking them to step into an environment that is familiar yet forbidden in higher education. Then there is that space that lives between the familiar and the forbidden and that is the liminal plane where transformation occurs. It was Kelly’s willingness to offer the transformative practice of sound healing for Black women in STEM that was my biggest and most exciting challenge. By incorporating the cultural, the compassion of traditional spirituality, indigenous and African practices, and the power of voice and movement, I was able to infuse the diverse world of contemplative practices, that included shavasana and the sound of African, Caribbean, and Eastern instruments, as restful healing. And Kelly was willing to create the sanctuary necessary to provide much needed comfort.
LT: When did you realize that you were a team of collaborators?
KM: When she arrived, I had no idea what she would bring to the collaboration, only that there was a need for this community (and me) to have a place to put our angst and manage it while we tried to conceive of STEM higher education reform in new ways. Enter Stephanie. The practice of mindfulness is rarely associated with scientific research or teaching. But, when you consider what it takes to fuel a movement, it makes perfect sense. How can one reform what one cannot feel? How can one feel for others what one is not willing or able to feel within oneself? Stephanie’s expertise was the ideal complement to my beginner level mindfulness work, moderate and somewhat undisciplined reiki practice, and simple praying.
SB: I suppose that I am a collaborator by nature. I don’t know any other way. In addition, development of any idea can’t occur in a vacuum. Of course, that might be counter intuitive to a researcher, but Kelly was willing. I am also an idea person and that sometime causes me to have limited flexibility when my creative thoughts are questioned. It is through contemplative practice that I remember to pause and reflect and to make sure that I am listening and hearing the vision of the individuals with whom I wish to collaborate. But here’s the thing, Kelly just listened, asked questions, and we found common ground on what worked. I also want to add that the most important part of our collaboration was that much of our work together consisted of creating spaces of practice for Black academics in STEM. It was a wish fulfilling jewel for me.
LT: What is your process for working co-collaboratively with each other?
KM: With our collaboration came a targeted emphasis on heart, spirit, and soul. I convened a caring space. Stephanie introduced meditation, African ancestral tradition, loving kindness, art, and the power of movement into it—none of which are mainstays in the culture of STEM. But, for us, they are now. I plan every STEM reform meeting with mindfulness in mind. I insist there be time for structured and unstructured reflection and meditation—for those who enter and learn in the space and for me as convener of the space.
SB: Creating a caring space is the main objective of our co-collaborations. To achieve that, I have one main approach that I’ve used over the years I’ve worked with Kelly. Basically, I ask lots of questions. I never assume I know the needs of her communities. There are times I think, “What is she asking of me? or “How will I manage this?” I am always working to uncover various ways to make real her vision. So, I email or text and ask more questions. And not just once; multiple times. And she simply responds. And with every response, every discussion, my contemplative creativity expands. The fact that Kelly is accepting of the myriad ways I imagine contemplative practice is a testament to our co-collaborative success. She is my teacher, friend, and voice of “Of course, this is possible.”
I also need to add that when I enter any space that she creates, I am home. It’s not often that I can say that. We are a family of co-collaborators. That fact that Kelly has incorporated time for reflection and meditation into her STEM meetings to me is more than just an action, it is an act of love. This work cannot be done without love in the mix.
We SEE Transformation: Keeper of the Sanctuary
LT: What has been most surprising thing you learned about collaborating and creating with each other?
KM: All collaborations are surprising. The very nature of opening yourself up to someone—and your work, your platform, your notes, and your private aspirations—for the purpose of accomplishing something greater than either of you could accomplish alone is bound to uncover some unknowns. For me, the unknown was the necessity of not just caring for myself but caring for myself in ways that make me attractive as a care-full collaborator. After all, who wants to work in a care-full space with someone who only sees care as an important box to check or as something that’s only worthwhile for others?
SB: Wow! What have I learned from Kelly? Tenacity. Strength. She’s a dog with a bone that she intends to share with those who need nourishment. When I learned that Kelly had experience with meditation and was also Reiki Level 2, I felt a sense of relief. Looking back, what I didn’t know initially is that we are both spirit keepers. Or maybe I did know spiritually from the start. And as we grew as collaborative partners, I adopted her steadfastness and commitment to the STEM community. I dare anyone to act or speak disparagingly of the work she does and doggedly serve as keeper of the sanctuary that she has created. Collaboration is beyond a bond, a friendship, or even a work relationship. It’s learning to lay your burdens down and carry the sword to the goal. When Kelly calls, I rally.
KM: As a keeper of safe brave spaces for scientists, there is oftentimes little time or room for focus on my own respite and restoration. But this work of reforming STEM undergraduate education requires both and the care-full collaboration with Stephanie is the constant reminder that I must diligently pursue both. Not only does her expertise lend itself to this role. She also lives it. And she makes me want to live it too.
SB: In my opinion, Kelly and I continue to accomplish what seems impossible. We are focused on our needs. I used to think that I was more focused on Kelly’s needs than my own. Over time I understand that our needs are one. We are like twin siblings, knowing what is to be known. Perhaps it’s the nature of the willingness to receive and know each other’s thoughts, as is the case in this conversation. Kelly continues to test my ability to create contemplative practices that connect to the needs of her vision. Her deep care for her community and compassionate communication with me is my nourishment. Yes, this is what compassionate, care-full collaboration looks like.
LT: I think I’ll end with the question: When you reflect on the co-collaboration community you both created, what is the one practice that has been a constant for you?
SB: When I was in South Africa, I was met with the Zulu greeting, “Sawubona!” or “I see you!” I revisited this greeting after reading an article written by a fellow contemplative and friend, Dr. Stephen Murphy Shigematsu, and it reentered my life during the pandemic. Kelly was designing virtual spaces for her HBCU STEM writing institute for faculty that met once a week for 6 months. She required the group to keep their cameras on, the goal being the need to create community. Every week, I offered 15-minute practices. And so, it was that I began each session with the “I See You” practice asking participants to take 2-3 seconds to look deeply at each person in the Zoom rectangle and say, “I see you.” It was a simple practice that over the course of six months, created a shift in the role of community. There were smiles and a sense of “shiboka,” or “Because you saw me, you brought me into existence.” When we finally met face to face for a 5-day workshop intensive, there was a sense of knowing each other. This is the power of practice.
I wish to end our time, expressing that when Kelly and I decided to work on this interview together, she was the one who said in conversation: “We SEE transformation. We are the Keepers of the Sanctuary.” I learned that visionaries come in many forms. We are the Keepers. My dear friend, Kelly, when I SEE you, the words of Rilke arise. “May you have patience with everything that remains unsolved. May you live the questions now and live your way into the answers.” If I haven’t said it enough, I am glad you are in my life.
KM: The greatest practice I’ve learned from Stephanie is that of loving kindness. Stephanie introduced it to my community over ten years ago and it still resonates with me. It’s the basis upon which I am able to demonstrate care for myself and those I serve. It’s also the basis upon which I am able to offer forgiveness to those who I don’t, or no longer care to, serve. The freedom that loving kindness affords me to move through this world unburdened by the mistakes or wrongdoings of others while grateful for the favor and positivity of others is nothing short of amazing. It’s a gift for which I will forever be grateful to Stephanie and one that I often offer to her. Just as I wish to, may Stephanie have health, prosperity, and peace. May she be free from harm, anxiety, and fear. And, just as I wish to, may she live a life of ease and happiness.
