Schomburg fellow authors book on ‘healing while studying’

Richard Williams, an Arthur A. Schomburg Fellow in the Graduate School of Education, says he caught the “PhD bug” during his master’s program, but an extensive application process and a long list of potential schools turned his focus inward.

Williams saw an opportunity to build community for minority graduate students with a history of trauma and began including a book outline along with his graduate school submissions. That led to his new publication, “Healing While Studying: Reflections and Strategies for Healing, Coping, and Liberation of Graduate Students of Minoritized Identities” (a volume in the Research, Advocacy, Collaboration, and Empowerment Mentoring Series, Information Age Publishing).

Williams says the book has fulfilled a goal of uplifting the voices of an often-overlooked community. He describes the book as a collection of essays submitted by graduate students, like himself, whose academic experiences have been clouded by societal crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, racism, homophobia, transphobia, patriarchy, white supremacy, xenophobia and ableism. 

“These scholars’ stories and gifts of wisdom and compassion are truly immeasurable,” Williams says. “I realized how important it is for our stories to be archived within the academy we work and study in. We developed an international working community — abundant in care and compassion, and ruled by an ethic of slowing down and dropping into the moment.”

It was more than a drive to empower others that led Williams to compile these stories: His own academic experiences were full of hardships in the form of ableism, racism and homophobia. “I am very grateful to be here, and every institution of learning has room to improve, especially higher education and inclusion,” Williams says. “Regardless of where I chose to study, I would have experienced these hardships.”

The difference at UB, Williams explains, is that faculty and staff have welcomed him to discuss these experiences. “They hear and see me as a person first,” Williams says. With this book, he continues, he is “making a community of individuals here who are reflexive and want to do better however they can, just how UB helped me.” 

As a graduate fellow, Williams is working toward a PhD in curriculum, instruction and science of learning. He plays an active role in the GSE, serving as a co-lead to the Student Research Symposium and working with faculty on inclusivity and increasing awareness of mental illness and how to care for and teach students with illness.

“My research efforts center on the development of what I call ‘a pedagogy of compassion,’ or the ways in which compassion and healing are already present and being cultivated in learning spaces. More specifically, I explore how we learn about ourselves, such as the emotions and behaviors that create a more holistic and embodied learning experience for all,” he says. 

This book, Williams notes, is the embodiment of his pedagogy and falls in line with his career as a middle and high school teacher working in special education. He says he felt called to help students find their way through intense emotion and impulse, and academic or life struggles. As he watched his students grow through adversity and various states of being, he began to follow the path of least resistance, which he says is compassion.

This experience sparked his exploration of professional development opportunities aimed at understanding the emotionality and language of students. Over time, he found this language and now wants to guide others down this path.

“Before I embarked on my PhD program, I wanted to be sure that no matter what, a community — one centered on ethics of care and health — could be created, even at this level of schooling,” Williams says. “This book was a way to see I could once again create a space for people to diverge and feel loved and celebrated just for being, let alone their contributions to the group.”