The Purpose of Belonging: How Austin Community College Built a Collaborative Culture…and How You Can Too!
Editor-in-Chief Jessica Oest, Managing Editor Christopher Rzigalinski, and student contributor and leader, Elisha Mac Gregor, presented at the 50th TACHE Conference in Austin/Georgetown on February 26-March 1, 2025.
Abstract
Austin Community College’s A Collaborative Culture Magazine invites students, faculty, staff, and community members to collectively redefine shared identities in Texas’s capitol city. In this 60-minute workshop, Editor-in-Chief Jessica Oest, Managing Editor Christopher Rzigalinski, and student contributor and leader, Elisha Mac Gregor discuss how the editorial team leaned into a purpose-oriented framework to create more inclusive conversations across ACC’s district of eleven campuses. Participants will leave with outlines of their own culture-redefining projects.
Objectives
1. How to develop strategies for working within legislative boundaries to maximize purpose and belonging.
2. How to creatively shatter boundaries between campuses and local neighborhoods and earn trust from the residents who live around your institution.
3. How to design a multidisciplinary project that can redefine your own campus culture
Steps for Creating Your Collaborative Project
“…many people who want to drive changes…face an uncomfortable dilemma. If they speak out too loudly, resentment builds toward them; if they play by the rules and remain silent, resentment builds inside them. Is there any way, then, to rock the boat without falling out of it?”
“They believe that direct, angry confrontation will get them nowhere, but they don’t sit by and allow frustration to fester. Rather, they work quietly to challenge prevailing wisdom and gently provoke their organizational cultures to adapt. I call such change agents tempered radicals because they work to effect significant changes in moderate ways.”
“Taken together, the approaches form a continuum of choices from which tempered radicals draw at different times and in various circumstances.”
Debbie Meyerson, “Radical Change, the Quiet Way,” Harvard Business Review (2001)
| “Tempered radicalism” as articulated in Richard Reddick’s book Restorative Resistance in Higher Education | Steps to creating a collaborative culture | One example of how the magazine accomplished this step |
|---|---|---|
| Disruptive self-expression | Choose a project that can represent many voices in a common concern or conversation. Define your mission. | Decide to bring back to life A Collaborative Culture magazine with a refined focus: building a platform to amplify all voices and spotlight experiences that motivate, inspire, and reflect on. |
| Verbal jiu jitsu | Identify a topic with a wide-ranging impact on yourself, your team, and your community. Discuss it openly and honestly without a critical voice, letting the the issue’s true nature reveal itself. | For us, it was SB17. It meant contextualizing Austin history as it relates to within ACC Community (i.e. the 1960s sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters) within our current moment. |
| Broadening impact through negotiation | Examine local community and institutional events. Ask how you and your team can play a role in those events, further bringing to life the mission of your project to life. Ask where your limitations are and how you can plant seeds to create longer-term change at a later time. Ask what mutual partnerships and collaborations can accomplish that work and develop impact. | For us, this started by working with the Truth, Community Healing, and Transformation Center. We understood the mutual benefit of supporting the TCHT’s mission of “a partnership with our community to build cross-racial relationships that lead to racial healing and an exploration of ways to transform the college and community for greater inclusion, belonging and success for all persons.” |
| Leveraging small wins | Partner with the local community-based and institutional organizations doing that work. Even partner with local businesses doing similar work. Ask how your project can uplift their work and how your the mission can augment their goals. | For us, one thing this meant was understanding the value of community organizations like Mi My Montopolis and inviting the founder to contribute personal photos to the magazine. This complemented his mission to preserve the history of our local Montopolis neighborhood and welcomed community voices into ACC spaces. This was an act of trust-building. Later we looked at spaces that fostered conversations around sober curious and non-alcoholic options as a way to spotlight a different perspective on wellness. |
| Strategic alliance building | With the help of strategic alliances, an individual can push through change with more force and thought. | For us, one example of this meant creating space for students like Aaron Moeller and the NeuroBats to openly discuss their experiences and advocate for institutional change in how neurodiverse students are supported. |
| Finally, the second wave of strategic alliances with faculty, staff, and community members that uplift students. | For us, this means the current wave of bringing the magazine into Service-Learning courses, making it a resource for faculty to use in class and for classes to contribute to. |