Podcast Transcript

Episode 73: Activists, Artists, and Anti-Fat College Campuses: Raising Awareness and Mobilizing Support for Marginalized Individuals

[Bouncy theme music plays.]

Sam: Hey, I’m Sam.

Ashley: Hi, I’m Ashley, and you’re listening to All Bodies. All Foods. presented by The Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders. We want to create a space for all bodies to come together authentically and purposefully to discuss various areas that impact us on a cultural and relational level.

Sam: We believe that all bodies and all foods are welcome. We would love for you to join us on this journey. Let’s learn together.

Ashley: Our guest today is Stephanie Spitz, a multidisciplinary artist, educator, activist, researcher, and writer.  She holds a BFA in painting from Drake University  and an MFA in studio art from Montclair State University, where she currently serves as an arts administrator and adjunct instructor. She is also pursuing an MA in higher education. Sam and I came across Stephanie after reading an article about her published last year in November of 2024. And it was detailing how she is actively fighting fat discrimination in higher education. Not only is she raising awareness of anti-fatness across the campus at Montclair University, she’s also putting her research into action and has already influenced changes on the campus, such as an inclusive classroom design  featuring seating for larger students and those with disabilities, and healthcare accessibility, which includes offering gowns in various sizes, implementing a decline-to-weight policy,  and prominently displaying inclusive signage. Stephanie’s work is rooted in a vision for body liberation and belonging for historically marginalized communities using education, policy advocacy, creative expression, and social connection as tools  for systemic change.  As you listen to this episode today, I would encourage you to think like Stephanie. How can you use your myriad of unique talents to advocate for those in the margins?

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of All Bodies All Foods. Ashley here with my partner, Sam, and we are joined today by Stephanie Spitz. Stephanie, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

Stephanie: Thank you for having me. 

Ashley: Yeah! So we have so many questions and we’re going to dive into all sorts of stuff today in our episode, but before we get going, I was just curious if you could give us a little bit of background. What brought you to the place that you’re working at? You work on college campuses in a myriad really of professional positions, I would say. And one of the main things that we’re going to talk about today is your work with anti-fat discrimination across university campuses.  We’re going to get into some talk on disabilities as well  and social justice kind of areas like that. We would just love for you to give us a little bit of background. How did you arrive here?

Stephanie: Yeah, so my background is really as an artist.  I came to higher ed wanting to teach and ended up being an administrator and falling in love with that, surprisingly to myself, I didn’t think administration was my thing, but I love it.  And so I’ve been at Montclair State for almost a decade, and as you sort of alluded to, I wear many hats.  I’m an alumna, staff member, adjunct faculty. I’m a current graduate student again, and I’m big on volunteering. So I volunteer with a lot of different groups on campus.  And I’ve always been, I’ve always been really passionate about learning about underserved communities and learning about ways that I can help lift them up. I think I come to this, right, really wanting to help other people. And that’s how I got started with the anti-fat research. It started as a student coming into my office saying, “I can’t fit into the chair in the classroom down the hall. What do I do?” And I’m a fat person myself. So that obviously hit really home for me, and that’s kind of how I started doing all of this research and how it’s impacting students and also employees on college campuses.

Sam: So you’re really coming from a place of wanting to help as many people as possible?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Sam: And also there’s this lived experience piece.  I was wondering if you could say more about that, because you said this really hit home for you.

Stephanie: Yeah, and I think, I think as, well one, I want to say something about language, I use the term fat  as both a neutral descriptor, but also as like a proud identity marker. So I just like to put that out there because a lot of people don’t like to use the word fat and are sort of frightened by that word.  And this is fairly new for me to claim that identity, probably only in the last two years or so.  So growing up, you know, when I was in middle school and high school, I got bullied a lot for my body size, and  you know, that stays with you  a while and that sort of  most definitely led into having an eating disorder and,  constantly always trying to shrink myself physically  and, and also just personality wise too, because as a large person, I felt like I had to be on the sidelines to avoid that attention.  And I remember being in school thinking like, I’ve got to be the best at everything I do so that folks don’t just think of me as that fat kid.  So it kind of forced me to be good at school because I didn’t want to be labeled as something else.  So when that student came into my office, I was like, oh my gosh, yes, I need to help you. And I need to help you in ways that it’s not just about bringing in another chair into that classroom, right?

Ashley: Like there are systemic things that need to change.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Ashley: Yeah. And actual things as well, but also like systemic in the way that we view things need to shift.

Stephanie: Yeah, and sometimes they’re like really easy little things. I was in the bathroom stall in a different building the other day and it was much smaller than the one in my building.  And I was like, can we get these toilet paper things moved so that there’s just a little bit more space in the bathroom stall? Things that you would never think about if you’re not a large person, right? But that’s what our students are dealing with on a daily, right, basic need level of, “can I go to the bathroom here,” right?

Sam: Mm-hmm, exactly. Let’s talk about some of the changes you’ve not only advocated for, but you’ve actually- you’ve made them happen on your campus, which is really incredible.  You advocated for inclusive classroom designs, featuring seating for larger students, which we talked about, health care accessibility, which includes offering gowns in various sizes, implementing a decline to weigh policy and prominently displaying inclusive signage.  I was hoping you can talk more about these changes and what has the impact been on the student population?

Stephanie: Yeah, so all of this came out of being able to present some of my research to leadership in student affairs. So I worked with the director of the Student Health Center, Sarah, shout out to Sarah, you’re great.  And she just, I shared my research and shared the recommendations with her and she immediately was like, yes, let’s do this.  And for those who don’t know what a declined to weight policy is, probably your audience does, but it’s being able to go into a doctor’s office and declined to be weighed, unless it’s absolutely necessary. And the signage was a big thing for me because as a fat person, I’m always looking for these little clues to know if spaces are safe for me. And so I wanted to have a sign right on their front door that said, ‘we serve all bodies, regardless of race, gender, nationality, insurance,’ et cetera. Right.  When you walk into their office, they have a copy of Health At Every Size on their, on their coffee table.

Sam: We love that! That’s amazing. 

Stephanie: Yeah. So it’s just like, gives me goosebumps sometimes thinking about it.  I don’t work as directly with students. So I’m not sure, you know, how they’ve interacted with that space, but I can only think of like, you know, 19-year-old Steph and how she would have reacted to that because I was deep in my undiagnosed eating disorder on college campus and really flailing to learn what health was for me, right?  So I think it’ll be a really big impact over time, especially, you know, the campus was 26,000 students on it. So. 

Sam: Wow. Wow.  So Stephanie, this is rooted in research. 

Stephanie: Yes, absolutely.

Sam: Can we learn a little more about this research? What did you find?

Stephanie: Yeah. So I was reading people like Linda Bacon, Sabrina Strings, Aubrey Gordon, all peer-reviewed research I was looking at. And what I found was it’s the most prevalent form of discrimination out there. It has surpassed discrimination based on race or gender.

Ashley: Really? I didn’t know that.

Stephanie: Yeah. And it’s legal in 49 states.

Ashley: Whoa.

Stephanie: There is no federal legislation, not a single piece of it, protecting fat people.  Michigan has had some legislation on the books for decades.  Minneapolis just approved us some legislation. New York City has some up.  So things are changing slowly, but right now I could be fired from my job for being fat and that would be legal.  I could be denied housing. I could be, right?  And that’s on a bigger systemic level. When I started to focus in on higher education, I found what you might assume I would find, which was that fat people have lower academic results because of the peer bullying, because they can’t fit into the furniture and they can’t focus on what an instructor is saying because they’re in literal pain.  And so that’s what I found. And I found that there’s not a lot of research on this topic at all.  A lot of it is based on sort of a weight loss paradigm where folks are just still trying to get people to lose weight.  But it’s really, goes back, Sabrina Strings wrote this amazing book, if you haven’t read it, called Fearing the Black Body.

Sam: She was a keynote speaker for us actually at the Renfrew Conference.

Stephanie: Oh my gosh, oh that’s so amazing. So that book really opened my eyes and I was like, okay, well if I can’t get people to care about fat folks, maybe I can get them to care about racism and misogyny to start with as sort of like, okay, these are things we’re already trying to combat. So yeah, what I found was really not great and one article was really important for me. It was a survey of what other higher education institutions are doing around that social justice or body liberation. And this article found that out of 200 institutions, not a single one of them was dealing with the topic.

Sam: Wow.

Stephanie: I was like, how is this possible? I’m so surprised and angry, especially because it’s so permeated in our society. So I got mad. I got really angry doing this research.  And it sort of sparked a fire under my tushy to get working and to not be patient so much, I guess. I’m like, you know what? Things can happen quickly if we just fight for it, right?

Ashley: I’m curious, Stephanie, who like, okay, so being on a college campus, who was it important for you to partner with  in order to get the ball rolling for this?  And I’m asking that because I’m wanting students to know who might be some of their safe people to go to, right?  Some people who can advocate for them as well.  And then you kind of alluded to this, but like, I really would love to hear more about what 19-year-old Stephanie would like say about this work now. Like how much, like I’m curious if this is healing in any respect for 19-year-old Stephanie to be able to use your voice now and make changes and like see them and speak to them and get other faculty and professors and staff on board to support you.  So kind of a twofold question.

Stephanie: Yeah, I’m going to answer the easier part of that.  Which is sort of gathering my team on campus. I started with my colleagues in the disability caucus because they were people I felt safe with.  Even though sort of fatness isn’t covered by disability, they still allowed me to explore this and explore how they might help this work.  So I got a shout out to my colleagues there for being sort of my sounding board to begin with.  And then I just went straight to the top. I went to the head of all of our student affairs.  She’s the vice president for student development and campus life.  And I was, I just emailed her and was like, I want to talk to you about this topic.  And she trusted me and was like, yes. Here’s an hour, come to my office, let’s go. And I presented my work to her and she was like, I got to get you in front of my leadership team immediately. And so she was obviously a major part of getting me a platform to start sharing this with folks. And so that’s how I met the director of the Student Health Center and various people in our counseling and psychological services. I worked with folks in our Disability Resource Center, Dean of Students. These are all offices that I think students can find allies in, even if their offices don’t necessarily cover whatever topic you’re struggling with.  There are people who care about you and who know how to find resources for you.  So those were some of my sort of teammates. I definitely did not do this alone. 

Sam: Yeah, Stephanie, when you presented the research to the team, do feel like there was anything specific about that research that helped convince them that these changes needed to happen?

Stephanie: Yeah, I think I… this is an intense presentation that I gave 90 minutes of full peer reviewed content. And so I think they were like, wow, this was a really well-researched, rooted in data, right?  And that always speaks well to academics. And I wasn’t just speaking to academics. was speaking to student affairs professionals. So I needed to talk about students and really be like, here is a quote. This is what students feel like when they’re sitting in a chair that’s too small. Or just,  I had them take a thin privilege quiz that a colleague of mine, Claudia Cortese created, which also just kind of helped them to highlight, here are all the things that fat people experience that I don’t know about if you’re not fat, right?  And I think that was also really eye-opening for them to be like, you know what? Yes, we need to make change. I didn’t know people were experiencing this.  So I think it was just, honestly, they didn’t know to think about it or they didn’t see it. Once, you know, higher education professionals are usually really big on  helping students and social justice.  So as soon as they know about the problem, they’re willing to like get into problem solving mode.

Sam: Wow. So it was really just the not knowing. Once they discovered how many people  how many students on campus were suffering  that that’s really all it took it sounds like.

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah.

Sam: And I think your 90-minute presentation filled with research and thinking. Yes.

Stephanie: And I providing them… I provided them with really concrete action items. T-shirts in extended sizes for all of the programming and advertise that you have extended sizes for your programming, you know, and make sure you have images of fat students on your website. Small thing, right?

Sam: Yeah, representation.

Stephanie: But you know, if you go on the Montclair website now and you do a scan of how many fat bodies there are, you’re not going to see a lot. That’s sort of that unconscious bias that, you know, whoever our designers are.  Not to point fingers, but so yeah, I think just informing people that this is an issue that fat people are discriminated against every single day in almost all aspects of their lives.  That’s got to be the first part of the conversation.

Sam: Not to mention that weight stigma, weight discrimination, these are risk factors for eating disorders that we don’t talk about enough.  And at the very least, we should want to do everything we can to reduce the risk of someone developing a potentially fatal eating disorder.

Stephanie: Yeah. I think, I think part of that challenge is that a lot of healthcare providers are working in a weight centric model where they believe that this person is going to be healthier at a smaller weight.  And, you know, the data is not suggesting that.  And that’s where I have, you know, my personal experience with healthcare providers has not been great and where I was, you know, basically celebrated for having an eating disorder for years because I lost the weight until I gained it all back, right?  So I included a health section in my presentations because a lot of the research shows that dispelling the myths about the controllability of weight will also reduce the peer-to-peer bullying. We can assume hopefully that it would also reduce some of the other negative behaviors like avoiding the gym or eating disorder, the disordered eating type of things.  So I make sure to always include sort of a health at every size kind of lens in any part of the presentation because that link between weight and health or weight and morality are so strong in people’s minds.

Sam: Mm. So true.

Stephanie: And I think that’s the hardest part for them to wrap their heads around.

Sam: Yeah, to unlearn. It’s really been drilled into our heads, really, for as long as I can remember. So it’s difficult work trying to teach people a different way to approach health.

Stephanie: To get back to your other question, Ashley, in terms of what younger Steph would think. Current me is still like trying to figure out like, how do I be healthy? How do I eat and nourish my body and move my body in ways that feel good and don’t feel like a punishment?

Ashley: Yes.

Stephanie: And I’m still very much in that, right? I’m trying to figure it out.  But I do think this work is forcing me to look at the deep, deep seated traumas and pains and memories that are connected to my body. I think it is healing. I’m in that moment where it’s still really, really hard for me to do the work and do my therapy work, right,  myself, and to try to really understand my relationship between my mental illnesses and eating disorder and my advocacy work. I know it’s connected, it’s got to be,  but right now it’s like almost easier for me to focus on helping others than helping myself, which sounds bad. That’s bad advice. Oxygen mask, put on your own oxygen mask first. 

Ashley: Can I say something?  It’s authentic and human advice, Stephanie.  It’s not right, like it’s not good or bad. Like this is your experience, you know?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Ashley: I was teaching a class last week on eating disorders to a group of professionals. One of the things that we, like an intervention, tool that we love to teach in eating disorder work, well, we want to practice flexibility in our cognition and in our behaviors and things like that. So we love the CBT tool of a reappraisal or a reframe, so like, saying something that feels kind of yucky, but then asking them what could also be true, what could also be true, and kind of getting them to practice flexibility. And I had a provider, and so again, I was working with, it was a whole group of really like eating disorder professionals, it was therapists.  And I had somebody raise their hand and ask, “well, how do you reframe when somebody has had the experience when they say like, nobody likes me because I’m fat?”  And I said to her, you know, I think maybe, maybe the reframe there is that there have been a collection of people that haven’t liked me because I’ve been fat and I, you know, I know that because I’ve experienced the discrimination, but like also we can’t reframe somebody’s lived experience.  And I think that’s huge work for us to understand in any avenue coming at this. Like if somebody comes into the doctor’s office and they’ve had the lived experience of being told that if they lose weight, their X, Y, and Z is going to get better.  To be able to come into a facility on campus that has the Health at Every Size book, and that says, that has the signage that all bodies are welcome and that has the no-weight policy like that has got to be phenomenally huge for that student to be able to feel that, because they likely have had lived experience that has said otherwise, and that has been really hurtful to them.

Stephanie: Yeah. And I think college students are at, not all of them, but most of them are at such an interesting point in their lives, right, where they’re still fully developing who they are as a human being, and what their identity is, and what their priorities in life are going to be. So if we can get to them at that phase in their life, we could be really impactful.

Ashley: Yeah. Yeah.  I’m just sitting here thinking of my own college experience so many years ago,  but just how lovely that could have been for me to have seen some work like that done across campus. Yeah. I’m so thankful that you’re doing this. And I’m hoping we’ll get to this, but I’m hoping that other campuses will pick up on this as well and keep the momentum going.  But so if you don’t mind, can I shift directions and like bring in your art? I’d love to ask you some questions about your art specifically. So I was on your website and it says that your administrative work and research are based in social justice and intersectionality, and that your work in arts education is used as a tool for social justice, racial equity and equity mindedness,  weight-based discrimination, feminist theory and embodiment.  And I was curious if you could share more, you’ve really shared a lot of your information regarding research, but if there’s anything else to share, please do that.  But I’m curious as how you use art as a tool to support you in, and I would say your advocacy work and the way that you present this  to everyone, you know, faculty, staff and students alike.

Stephanie: Yeah, so I use it in  various ways. One way is truly as self-care.  So I think making arts, working with your hands is just a meditative, amazing process that anyone can benefit from. What I love about art is that there’s oftentimes when we just don’t have the words to talk about our feelings  or what’s going on in the world and when things get really, really complex.  But images can feel approachable, can be, can work across cultures in really interesting ways.  And I think it can be an approachable way for students to engage in something like racial equity work or disability work, right? So thinking about embodiment, how we learn and remember things in our body.  That was a big part of my artwork is sort of remembering physical activities. And so thinking about one, like  how we hold trauma in our bodies, how do we release trauma in our bodies? That’s another way we can think about using art.  But also just as like, you know, propaganda, right? Like we have this whole history of lovely propaganda, posters, designs, artworks, and so, you know, we had our students designing activist posters, imagine you’re going to protest.  Here are a few visual, you know, think about using diagonal lines or bright colors or text. Think about ways that you can communicate your idea really quickly and to a lot of people broadly. So that’s why I’m really interested in using art as a way to both learn about and advocate for social justice issues.  And I had sort of started out teaching art just about those topics and really sort of interested in globalization and global perspectives around art and histories and stuff like that. And I think intersectionality being the framework for all of my work makes sense, because I’m not just existing in this world as, a white person or as a woman. I’m a disabled, white, fat woman, educator, right?  And all of those identities are working together to produce stuff, and with my various power dynamics going on. So I think intersectionality can be kind of a key when you’re learning about forms of discrimination and also doing the work of dismantling this discrimination. 

Sam: Fascinating. Fascinating the intersection of art and social justice issues. And I was thinking to myself, you played such a big role in getting the inclusive signage up on campus. Did you have any say of what the signs look like?

Stephanie:  Yeah, I did, I designed the signs.  They’re within, yeah, they’re within brand guidelines. So they’re very much just like Montclair branding with my words.  Yeah. So, they feed each other in a lot of ways- the social justice work and the art and not always in work ways, right? Sometimes it’s just that self-care moment too. 

Sam: Absolutely. We are huge fans of art therapy at Renfrew. We had our art therapist on the show. We had a whole episode on art therapy. So we truly do believe in the power of art. So thank you for reminding us of that.  I was hoping we could talk a little bit about a course that you taught, Disability, Justice, and the Arts, and we were reading through the syllabus and it looks absolutely amazing.  You wrote in the syllabus that your students will learn to analyze and engage with critical social, political, cultural, and or scientific issues affecting their communities, polities, and societies. So what inspired you to put this course together? And I was just curious what the response has been from the students who have taken this course.

Stephanie: Yeah, so I was approached by my colleague, Dr. Elaine Gerber. She’s an anthropologist and an expert on disability culture.  So she wanted to co-teach with me.  And so we designed this course sort of thinking that art was going to be the vehicle that they learned the concepts of disability and the concepts of justice through.  And I do think our students found that the art piece was really approachable and allowed them to kind of engage with mental health, right? All of them are dealing with various stressors as college students.  But if they could sit down and draw about it, that was a way that they could connect to their stress but not feel further stressed out by it.  And so it was really exciting to watch them sort of like, map out their own identities and kind of think about. Many of them did not consider themselves disabled, even though they would have had probably a diagnosis that would include them in that community.  Many of them went into it thinking, you know, I’m not part of this community. I’m interested in learning about disabilities, but they didn’t have any personal connection to it.  And I feel by the end, a lot of them realized, oh, wait, if I’m not disabled myself, I know disabled people, my family, my friends, whatever. And they started connecting with the community more, whether or not they identify as a member of the community. I thought that was really special.

Sam: It helped them with self-discovery, it sounds like, also, kind of going into this course and learning something new about themselves.

Stephanie: Yeah. And I think as the faculty, were also really open about understanding what it’s like to be a student.  Like we know that you are balancing multiple things, that you are probably taking care of family matters, working sometimes multiple jobs and to sort of model the best practices, I guess, you know, for them and to be like, “hey, I am a person with anxiety. I’m a student. I’m full working, full time. I’m doing a lot of what you’re doing.  And we can do it together.” And a lot of, we try to embed this idea of collective care, collective liberation. So not just learning about disability, but how other forms of discrimination are coinciding with disability.

Sam: Stephanie, what are some examples of some of the art projects that the students were working on in this course? I’m just curious if you can give us an example, so I can live vicariously.

Stephanie: Yeah. One example was like a mapping assignment, so they had to go out on campus and map the way that they walked and find moments of inaccessibility on campus, whether it’s stairs but no ramp, or maybe there were speakers that day. We had an event on campus and there was blaring speakers, so anyone with sensory issues would find that part of campus inaccessible.  And then they brought their maps back into the classroom and created symbols and sort of had to reconsider what the space could be like to be more accessible.  One example where, you know, they get a little bit of embodiment where they’re going outside, walking, thinking about the way that their body feels in nature and also sort of noticing all of these things too.

Sam: Wow, what an exercise in awareness to really observe on purpose what you’re experiencing as you’re walking through the campus that you may not have experienced otherwise. I mean we’re so distracted, I think, in our culture with our phone and we’re in our heads, and to really have a moment where we’re walking through an environment and thinking to ourselves, “what am I noticing about maybe what might be difficult for me in this moment or difficult for someone else?” And wow, that is really creative.  And I can see how it could really improve that level of awareness that we really need if we’re going to pursue any kind of meaningful change.

Stephanie: And I think that’s, it’s interesting you bring up awareness, because I think self-awareness is something that, you know, we hope for our students in so many situations. You know, we try to help them learn about themselves.

Sam: Awareness is, awareness really is the foundation of the work that we do in eating disorder treatment. It’s one of the very first components where can we just mindfully observe without judgment what we’re experiencing?  And it’s a skill, it takes practice.

Ashley:  I’m curious, Stephanie, so kind of you mentioned this term and I think, I’m thinking that  it really connects to awareness,  but the term embodiment, can you share with us more about what does that mean, and what were you hoping that your students would  really receive from learning what embodiment is?

Stephanie:  So embodiment is really being aware of your body, being aware of the sensations and the experiences that you’re having in the moment.  And I read a book ages ago by Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands. Do you know that book?

Ashley: I’ve heard of it, yes.

Stephanie: About using your hands to sort of heal from trauma.  Yeah, very simplistic way of describing that book.  But that idea has stuck with me for years, right? That if we if we can, and also the book, right?  Oh, it’s about trauma being stored in your body. 

Ashley: Oh, yes The Body Keeps Score.

Stephanie: Yes, The Body Keeps Score. And so as I was thinking about those things and the concept of disability, right, where we’re talking about our bodies so much, I wanted the students to be aware of their bodies in ways that it wasn’t just, I’m thinking about the pain in my neck or that I’m hungry, right? But to really dig in, to get to know themselves through their body. And so, you know, one of the assignments we did is called the shadow beast.  And it’s based off of a chapter in a book by Gloria Anzaldua called Borderlands. If you can’t tell I love to read. 

Ashley: Love it.

Stephanie: So, you know, she talks about having a shadow beast and us being a part of herself that lives within her that tends to kick back against societal norms and rules, and really is kind of like your guiding authentic self.

Ashley: The shadow beast is?

Stephanie:  Yes. Yeah.

Ashley: I was so curious. I saw that term and I was like, I need to know what this is. 

Stephanie: And it’s often parts of us that we feel we need to hide because they not allow us to belong or feel safe.

Ashley: Oh, yeah.

Stephanie: And so I invite students one to read the chapter, and then to consider what their own shadow beast would be. And to think… I think this is like probably the most impactful artwork they do all semester. It’s my favorite assignment.  Because students tend to really look at their identities, their intersectional identities, and the parts of themselves that they are unsure they can show to others.  And we all do this together, so it feels like a safe space. I usually show them my version of my shadow beast. And it becomes this moment of reflection on themselves. So one student actually did theirs on an eating disorder and he photographed himself binge eating in his car. Sorry, I’m getting emotional just thinking about it, because it really hit home to me that he could, you know, investigate something like an eating disorder through this project and also, you know, be in the mindset to be able to photograph him in the moment  when we feel so much shame. I mean, I always felt like I needed to hide my eating disorder behaviors, you know, so for him to be able to do that was so vulnerable and so powerful and for him to be able to share it with a class of people that you don’t even know.

Ashley: Yes.

Stephanie: It was really impactful. So that’s why I love that assignment. 

Ashley: Oh, that sounds incredible. It sounds healing to just, you know, and to be able to share again, like just like part of your humanity with other people. Like we all have, I don’t even want to call them flaws because I feel like that diminishes the word of shadow beast, but we all have these areas that that make us a little bit what nervous you know or insecure to bring up and wow that feels like it was really powerful. So you did another art project I think it was called the mask art project.  Could you share about that? I think the class was Social Justice Revisited. 

Stephanie: Yeah so that was kind of like a wrap up class for us. I wanted to make sure that our students really kind of understood intersectionality and the idea that of collective liberation, right, that we can do both.  And we maybe a little on the nose, we wanted them to create masks because we often find ourselves masking, you know, out in the world. So we allowed them to use whatever materials they wanted to. We provided them with a mask and they could just sort of go at it. And some people went, you know, the beauty route and made it sort of glittery and almost drag, if you will, and others sort of an emotional representation of what’s going on inside. And they put it on a visual external way.

Ashley: Yeah. I actually, Sam mentioned that we love art here at Renfrew and at the Tennessee site for a couple of years, I actually led the expressive arts group.  And so this stuff is just speaking to my heart so much. I love it because I agree with you. I feel like art and when you can like really move your hands and get in it,  it access a part of the brain that like we don’t know how to verbally communicate,  but we are definitely communicating when we are creating that art, and my guess is your students really did, again, gain so much more awareness about their own selves and how they were,  I guess, existing in the world around them.  And I just think that that is a phenomenal experience for a student to have.

Stephanie:  It was really and at the end of the semester, we had this collective mural that we made.  It was two murals really. So one was sort of the past and one was sort of the present and the future hopes of the community. And they were able to sort of display it on campus at a graduation event, which was kind of a lovely culmination of this whole class experience. And it was the first time we were teaching the class, so I hope we get to do it again.

Ashley: Yeah.

Stephanie: It was really awesome.

Sam: Oh, Stephanie, all of all of these things we’re talking about, I just hold so close to my heart, you know, accepting parts of ourselves, creating community and inclusivity, improving our self-awareness. I feel like I could talk to you for another couple hours here. I know we’re almost out of time. And I just wanted to wrap up by just reiterating you do so much. You’re an educator. You’re the president of the Disability Caucus on your campus, and you’re really guiding future generations to take action, to make changes, to make spaces more inclusive and feel safer. And so as we end this episode, what do you hope listeners take away from the show today?  What would you like them to remember?

Stephanie:  I think that you can make change even  with the small amount of power that you have.  You don’t need to wait until you’re in some other position or authorities, right? Like you can make real grassroots changes with your community right now as you are. I think that’s an important thing. And I think for students, I really want future students to think of their time in college, not just about academics or career readiness, but to really take that time to get to know themselves, right? Like that is such a huge part of becoming an adult and being able to communicate and work effectively with others.  So I think, you know, having them focus on themselves a little bit is a  good takeaway.

Ashley: Yeah, when they can be in a space like your campus that feels safe for them to focus on themselves. What an incredible, you know, even more incredible space to be in.

Sam: Yeah, Stephanie, thank you for empowering our listeners today. I mean, I’m feeling so energized by this conversation and you really give hope that change is possible and you don’t need a fancy degree. You don’t need a position, you know, on the board somewhere to make change and I think that that is such a powerful thing for our audience to hear.  How can they stay connected with you?  Now that the episode’s ending, they might be wondering, wait, I don’t want Stephanie to go away. How do I stay in touch?

Stephanie: So I would love to hear from folks.  They can contact me through my website. It’s https://www.stephaniespitz.com/. Hopefully you can put that in your show notes. My email is on there as well, stephaniespitz.gmail.com. And please, I welcome any and all feedback.

Ashley: Awesome. Thank you so much, Stephanie. It was such a pleasure to have you here.

Stephanie: Yes, thank you for having me and for spending this time talking about these topics that are so close to my heart. 

Ashley: Absolutely.

Ashley: Thank you for listening with us today on All Bodies, All Foods, presented by the Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders. 

Sam: We’re looking forward to you joining us next time as we continue these conversations.

Ashley: Thank you for listening with us today on All Bodies. All Foods. presented by the Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders.

Sam: We’re looking forward to you joining us next time as we continue these conversations.

[Bouncy theme music plays.]