Black Excellence: Marlon Cummings

Tariq El-Amin 00:01    

Welcome to “Black Excellence” at UIC.    

The Office of Student Success and Belonging, with Dr. Aisha El-Amin.     

Recording of Dr. Martin Luther King 00:09    

[Applause] Believe in yourself and believe that you’re somebody.    

Clips from 1995 movie “Panther”  00:17    

His intention is that we study and master a bunch of different things.   
Why are you here?     
Study and master a bunch of different things.   
I’m proud to introduce our new Minister of Information .   

Aisha El-Amin 00:26    

I’m Dr. Aisha El-Amin.    

Tariq El-Amin 00:29    

Welcome to “Black Excellence.”  

Marlon Cummings  00:36 

How do I know my students, right? Because if I know them, then I’m able to really support them. I’m able to see that they’re having a rough day, and maybe they just need a quick chat after class. You never know the influence that you have on a student, right? Particularly if we go back to K-12, we’re thinking, students spend more time with their teachers than they do with their parents in a Monday through Friday context. So what does that mean to, like, connect with them and be there for them.? 

Aisha El-Amin  01:03 

Hello, hello, hello good people, and welcome back to all of my great listeners, both new and old. I want to welcome you to the University of Illinois Chicago Black Excellence podcast. It’s sponsored by the Office of Student Success and Belonging in partnership with the Vice Chancellor for Strategic Marketing and Communications. And I’m your host, Dr. Aisha El-Amin. I serve as UIC’s executive associate vice provost for student success and belonging.   

Just a little bit of history and context — UIC’s Black Excellence podcast was initiated in Black History Month 2022. And we started off with 28 days of Black excellence. And this highlighted the history and legacy of exceptional Black faculty, students and staff that all call UIC home. During this month, we talked to graduates at all walks of life, from entrepreneurs to politicians, and they offered inspiration and sage advice while connecting the historic past to our contemporary time. However, UIC’s cup of Black excellence runneth over, and so we continue this podcast with understanding that you cannot know where you’re going until you understand, appreciate and connect into where you come from. So I stand in gratitude for the time that each of our alumni have given to us to have a conversation and to inspire. 

In this episode of The Black excellence podcast, we speak with scholar, educator and professional Marlon Cummings. Cummings discusses his deep passion for education and the significance of fostering a culturally responsive academic environment. Cummings begins by sharing about who he is and the driving motivation behind his career path.  

Marlon Cummings 03:00 

I’m a father, I’m a husband, I’m an educator. That’s who I am. I am a person who is trying to do good work out here in the field. But you know, my profession is, I serve as the chair, division of education and leadership in the College of Education and Human Development at Governor State University. And so in that role, I am, I serve, I oversee all of our educational licensure programs, from early childhood all the way up to principal prep, elementary, SPED, bilingual. We also have a doctorate program, and so help to lead that department, right, that large division of education. Which encompasses, you know, nine programs, 30 faculty.  

So I’m excited about that, and but prior to that, you know, I was, I was leading our doctorate program, and so I am, I’m excited about where I am right now in education and the things that I’m doing. But I’m also concerned about what I’m seeing, as well. And so wanting to figure out how to, like, kind of navigate my work with also my research, and that’s another thing. So I’m an administrator now, but I’m still researching. That’s a big part of why I became a PhD. Like, I love the research part. And so working with doc students, I’m like, when you get to, like, chapter four, this is it, man, you got IRB. This is all that work you’ve been doing, now you get to the fun of it. And so really looking at how we can, like, in my role, like, how do we improve upon the things that we’re doing, right? Like, what does it mean for teachers to have diverse, you know, student teaching experiences, right? How do we create programs that involve culturally responsive, you know, teaching and leading. But what does that look like in practice? Sure, should we check boxes, but how are we implementing things? And so really trying to think about how we put things into practice. And not just talk about it or learn about it, but really put it into action. That’s kind of where I am, and that’s my what I’m doing right now. 

Aisha El-Amin  04:56 

So I know, I know you’re a scholar and administrator. And those two roles are very difficult to navigate, right? Tell us about your scholarly side. What are you researching? What are some of the things that you found in your research?  

Marlon Cummings  05:10 

So one of the things that I’m really, I’ve been really keyed on in the last probably five to 10 years, five to seven years, around culturally responsive leadership. Because I’m a firm believer that, particularly when you’re looking at school spaces, like, the culture that the leader creates, helps all the other things happen. So if you create a space where teachers feel supported, they’re going to stick around. They’re going to stay. If you are looking at their teaching practice, their pedagogy, and you’re digging into that, they’re going to grow. If you are creating place and space for there to be culturally responsive teaching, for us to dig into, like, you know, the challenges that we’re having, for us to look at the demographic shifts, or, you know, the linguistic shifts within our school. And what does that mean for us, and how do we reach students? 

So I just think that, like, leaders have a strong impact on everything that happens in an organization. And so how do you develop leaders to have an awareness, first of themselves, right? When we think all this stuff, if you are not aware of your own stuff and what you bring to it, sometimes you get in your own way. So like helping them to realize what they bring to it, and then how to help them to recognize who they’re working with, and also create space where the others can do that.  

And so what I’ve continued to find is that leaders influence all of this, right? And so when you want to make change within the school, leadership has to be involved, right? And it’s a different kind of thing. Sometimes in larger organizations, you can have a little department and kind of do your thing, but in a school, like, the principal is the leader, and they have more of a management leadership role within a school, and so they have to be involved. They have to lean into the work that they’re doing.  

And so that’s kind of where, that’s really where my research is focused in on right now. But also, you know, different other things around, you know, again, how do we create better school environments? Again, I think while leadership is important, there are other factors. And so looking at some of those other things, like building community within the school, but also, how do you invite community into the school, and what does that look like, or more parent engagement or any of that.  

Aisha El-Amin  07:24 

That’s real. That’s good stuff. Now that you’re a scholar, an administrator, a leader, how did UIC play into that journey? 

Marlon Cummings  07:33 

Oh, gosh. So listen, when I got out of UIC, so I was still, I was still working for the State Board of Ed, and because it was a Steady Betty job, and I wouldn’t let that go. And so I kept that for like, another year or so. But then I really wanted to try to start having impact, right? And I think what UIC really did is, it really talked about how, like, the impact that we could have in multiple ways, both as a scholar but also as leaders within the field or within our own chosen disciplines.  

And so when I first got out, I was looking to be, kind of stay within, like a kind of a research one- type organization and did a lot of my academic searches along their lines, and got an opportunity to go to GSU. And I had never been there. I’d never been to Governor State prior to my interview. And so I went down there, and I got there, and it was cool. And after being there, like a year or a couple years, I was, like, I love it here, alright. And I never thought I really wanted to work at a teaching institution.  

Because UIC, like, you know, we, we don’t like to say it, but we’re kind of snobbish when it comes to, like, research. And so, like, and the people who get their docs out of UIC do hold themselves in high regard. Because, I mean, we believe in the rigor of, you know, research and all that. And I think that, that what I went through at UIC and my doctoral process, it actually helped me shape the EDD program that I was leading, right? It wasn’t as structured as our program. And I was like what are they doing here? And it made me think, like, you know, what I wanted to do is, even though these people were, we were developing leaders, they’re getting EDDs, they’re practitioners going back out into the field, I wanted them to be able to go through a program where they felt like they could go into a room with PhDs and have the same conversation. They knew about the research, they knew about, you know, research methods and like all of it, right? It wasn’t a surface doctor, which I think I kind of initially wrote into. And I think we have developed that, right, moved away from, like it was a capstone. I don’t know what they were doing, but I’m like, we’re doing five chapters, OK. And we can figure the rest out.  

You know, of course, some of it is obviously scaled back a bit. But, I mean, I think that that journey at UIC, one, it helped me to think about what does it mean to do this work and to become a researcher, and how do you develop them, right? So, it was really instrumental in that part of my work, but also in just how important it is for us to advocate and be advocates out in the field. Both whether it is, you know, I’m working at a social service agency, and I’m advocating, or I’m leading in a space, and I have an opportunity to build and advocate and to reach back and to bring people forward. Or if it’s in my research, right? So I think there’s this, this advocacy thing that I think UIC really built up in us, and I think, so both the advocacy part, but also just the technical part of, like, developing researchers. 

Aisha El-Amin  10:41 

That’s nice. So you took some of that snobbiness over. 

Marlon Cummings  10:46 

I did. I did. You see some of the students that have come through our program recently, they have a bit of an air about them, but that’s fine, right? Because I want, I mean, like, and I want you to earn this thing, too, right? I’m not like a, I’m not one that believes in gatekeeping to that point, but you know, you have to meet the mark in order to, you know, for me to call you doctor.  

Aisha El-Amin  11:07 

I’m not mad at that. Now you, you’ve talked about kind of this culturally responsive way of being. And for folks that don’t know what that means or looks like, can you just give us an understanding of what it means to be a culturally responsive educator? 

Marlon Cummings  11:23 

So as an educator, when we talk about this stuff, and this could be getting caught up in like, um, like, critical race theory, right? This is not that, OK? These are two separate things, right? And even when I have students and they are like, “Oh, CRT,” I’m like, don’t use that acronym. Spell it out, because it gets confusing, right? Because it really does, right?  

But when we think about culturally responsive, being a cultural responsive educator, it is about recognizing the people that are in front of me, understanding who they are, wanting to know, who they are, wanting to know more about them than what I see on the surface, to really help. Because the more I know about a student, if I’m an educator, the more I know about a student, the better I’m equipped to help you, to bring you to where I want you to go as an educator. Because there are going to be times where you’re going to have tough times and great times. And how do I reach a student? A big part of that is knowing those students, right?  

And again, it starts with knowing myself, right? I have to know who I am and what I bring, all the selves that I bring. And by that, like, you know, I’m a Black man, I’m heterosexual, I’m a dad, I’m a, you know, I’m a Christian. These are part of who make me up and I bring that to my work. And then I have to now, how does that play against every individual kid, not my class, but each student within my class, right? And I think the same thing rises up when you think about it, for leadership, right? I need to know my staff. I need to know who they are, because without that, how can we build community? How can we learn that there are more things that tie us together than separate us, right? And I think that being culturally responsive means understanding kind of my context.  

So if I’m an educator or if I’m an educational leader and I’m in one school and then I move to a different school, it’s going to be a different place. I can’t necessarily bring the same things, because it’s a different context. It’s different teachers, it’s different communities, it’s different histories, it’s different languages, it’s different students. It’s all of that, right? And so understanding my context and then working within that context, not trying to just do what I want on or act in any way that I want without recognizing what’s right before me.  

And I think that that is something that some educators struggle with because they struggle with this idea of getting to know students, right? They struggle with that idea of, you know, I have a job to do, and they feel like their job is just, like, giving you this knowledge. And I can talk some faculty now in higher ed. So this isn’t just something like K-12 things. We do this in higher ed, right?  

How do I know my students, right? Because if I know them, then I’m able to really support them. I’m able to see that they’re having a rough day, and maybe they just need a quick chat after class. You never know the influence that you have on a student, right? Particularly if we go back to K-12, we’re thinking students spend more time with their teachers than they do with their parents in a Monday-through-Friday context. So what does that mean to like, connect with them and be there for them? You are an important part of their life, and so you need to be someone that cares for them in some way, right? You know, it’s not in all things, but I care more than just this knowledge I’m trying to give to you. 

Aisha El-Amin  14:46 

I love that. I love that a lot. Now, are you, are you Chicago native?  

Marlon Cummings  14:53 

I’m not. I’m not. I’m originally from St Louis. But at this point, I spend more time here than I have St Louis. So, my mother was a teacher for 40 years. And actually, so even though we lived in Missouri, she taught at East St. Louis. And I don’t know if you’ve ever read, I’m sure you’ve read or know the book “Savage Inequalities.” 

Aisha El-Amin 15:14 

I’ve not read it, but I know it. 

Marlon Cummings 15:18 

Within that book, they talk about, like, these different, like, communities of schools that are, like, you know, economically and socially depressed, right? And in that book, one chapter is on East St. Louis, right? And my mother was like, there as a teacher during that time when that book was written. 

Aisha El-Amin  15:33 

That’s Kozol, yeah, I read that one. Look, yes, yes, yes, no, that’s, that’s some seminal work there. 

Marlon Cummings 15:43 

Right? And so, given that experience, right? My mother was like, “No, you know, you’re good in math, you’re good in science, go be an engineer.” Because I, at some point, I felt like I did want to be a teacher, but she was like, No.  

So I got laid off from consulting, which was a blessing for me. And so then I actually moved to D.C. If you got into certain graduate schools, you could go for free. So I got into grad school in D.C., moved to D.C. That was the best four or five years of my life, ’cause I just love D.C. It’s a great time. It just costs too much to live there. 

Aisha El-Amin  16:19 

And what did you, what did you major in? 

Marlon Cummings  16:23 

I got my master’s in public administration. 

Aisha El-Amin  16:26 

Oh, so you went from engineering to public administration to education. OK, I see you. 

Marlon Cummings  16:31 

And so while I was in D.C., I did some substitute teaching, got a provisional license and was a teacher for a few years. Middle school math and science. I love that and but again, that is also where some of my, like, understanding of, you know what, I’m having a hard time getting to these kids, and it’s because I need to deal with the social and emotional stuff first. I need to, like, connect with them in a way to then get them to the math and science, right? 

I had to understand that, you know, it’s after recess or lunch, right? And they’re hyped up. I’m like, what’s going on? And then let them talk for three minutes and gossip. And, “Nah, girl, you didn’t!” all this across the room. I didn’t care, right? Because then they got it out, and then we could get to work, right? And it’s just kind of understanding that. And so with that understanding, it kind of led me to do some different work. We started working at a nonprofit, doing social and emotional trainings for, like, kids and teachers and counselors and police officers. And so I love that word, too, because it really, like, again, I think that that’s a piece we have to tap into. They’re not thinking about equations when they are worried. You know, if they’re worried about what happened at recess or it’s at the end of the day, they worried about going home. 

Aisha El-Amin  17:58 

That’s right. Our journeys are quite similar, because I taught fourth grade, and I was like, who’s making the policies here? Like, they are not in the classroom. Because there’s a serious disconnect. And so that took me to learning and getting educated around it so that I could impact a change.  

So there’s a lot of wisdom and experience that you bring. And as students listen to this, and it may be students that went one pathway because their parents put them in that pathway and are hesitant about switching. And it may be students that are coming from out of state and coming to UIC. And it may be students that are, you know, love education. What are the pieces of advice as we close out that you could give to those students? 

Marlon Cummings  18:50 

One thing, education is a big industry, a big field, right? Industry, I hate to say field. But to that point, it is a lot of ways in which you can have influence and impact, right? And so I think, like, I think I would say to think about that. I would think, I would say, you know, one of the things that I did, I talked about it before, where, like, I took my first job, it was a money grab, right? Probably a mistake. So I would tell people, you know, don’t follow money. Follow your passion. Because if you’re following your passion, the money will come because you’ll be living in your purpose, and you’ll be living it and doing it so well that people will be like, hey, you need to come do this, or hey, you need to come do this, or hey, we’re going to give you this money. Will you come do this for us? Right? And they will see you working. And so I think making sure that you’re following your passion, doing the work you want to do. You may be trying to be a teacher, and you find like, man, I don’t think I’m fit for the classroom. But it doesn’t mean you can’t still be in education. You could work for a book company, you could work in policy, you could work for the State Board of Education. You could work in a lot of different ways to influence and impact education and young people. So my advice would be to follow your passion and to follow the thing that you want to do.  

And an exercise I would encourage people to do is, when you think about your day and your life, what does it look like? What is a, like, your kind of, like, perfect day? Like, what time are you waking up? Are you waking up early? Are you waking up late? Are you meeting? Are you with people? Are you with kids? Are you with adults? Are you working in teams? Are you working in isolation? Are you working somewhere out of the home, or are you working in home? Are you on the computer? Are you just out in the field? Like, what is it that, what does your day look like? And look at that day, think about your passion and try to meld those two things when you’re thinking about where I want to go and how I want to take my journey.  

And you know, I think, I was just talking to a student last night, and they were talking about, “My dad is keep telling me to get a real job,” all this. She, she’s a sign interpreter, right? And I’m like, “But do you love it?” She’s like, “I do.” I was like, “Well, parents will always be your parents, right?” But, and so you may have a parent is telling you one thing, but it’s your life. So making sure that you are living it in the way that you want, and leaning into that. And I think if you do that, you will find a happiness and a joy in your day to day that is unmatched. And you may not be able to explain it, but it’s just because you’re just doing what you’re supposed to be doing. And that always feels good. 

Aisha El-Amin  21:21 

Great advice. Such great advice. Thank you so much. You know I appreciate you endlessly. You and your time and what you have gone into the field of education with the passion that you have, and you’re creating the next generation of educators, which is impactful, very impactful work. So thank you for what you do. 

Marlon Cummings  21:42 

Thank you for this invitation, and it’s a joy to be here with you. 

Announcer  21:47 

Thanks for joining us. Find more inspiring and informative conversations with UIC alums, faculty and staff at blackresources.uic.edu. That’s blackresources.uic.edu.