Dear Higher Education: Letters from the Social Justice Mountain

Skinfolk Ain’t Always Kinfolk: How to Create Community in Institutions Where Community Should Be a Given

Rondrea Danielle Mathis

Albany State University

Abstract

In “Skinfolk Ain’t Always Kinfolk: How to Create Community in Institutions Where Community Should Be a Given,” Rondrea Danielle Mathis recalls her experience as—what producer Shonda Rhimes calls—an F.O.D., which stands for First. Only. Different. Rhimes explains how her career as a groundbreaking showrunner on the ABC network led to her feeling personally isolated, while concurrently fielding professional attention and accolades. In the same way, Mathis recalls her own journey at two distinctly different historically Black colleges: one where she expected the community to be a given and another where she made conscious choices to cultivate the community she sought. All told, Mathis offers a framework for institutional administrators to replicate these best practices at other institutions, helping to support junior scholars in familiarizing themselves with the campus and affording them opportunities to transform academia from the inside out.