Cheryl Grills oral history - August 23, 2022

Thank you again for joining us, uh, Dr. Grills, and for agreeing to interview for this IHIP project. Um, I'm going to go ahead and begin. I am Margarita Ochoa and I'm interviewing Dr. Cheryl Grills

for the Inclusive History and Images Project, a project that seeks to recover the histories of the diverse members of the LMU family. We are on the LMU campus today in the Creative Spaces

Studios, and today is August 23rd, 2022. Thank you again, Dr. Grills. Let's go ahead and begin with some biographical questions. Um, for the record, what is your full name?

My full name is Cheryl Tawede Noelle Grills. When and where were you born? I was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1958, which

makes me the—the tender young age of 63. Indeed. And where is your hometown? I know you mentioned Charleston just now.

Where is your hometown? And by this we mean where did you grow up or where do you consider home now? I consider Charleston home.

It's—it's um, it's the—the source of who I am. Um, the—the Southern values, particularly the Southern African American values. And I actually had a chance to take my 88- year-old mother back to Charleston and to her hometown,

Manning, which is about an hour away from Charleston um, to visit. And it was very grounding, very healing, also very eye opening because you get reminded about the harshness of life

if you're Black in America. Where do you currently live? Currently live right here in the Los Angeles area in Inglewood.

I'd prefer to live in Los Angeles [laughs], but I live in Inglewood. And that's just because all of my—my political and social activity, social justice work is in the broader Los

Angeles City area. Um, and so I don't get to vote on the things that I'm very much involved in. So.

And what is your current position in LMU? The current position at LMU is Professor of Psychology in the Psychology Department um, and President's Professor in the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts.

You are President's Professor. Um, how do you identify yourself? I identify as African American, um, but I also often interchange the terms African American and Black when I'm speaking of

my people. And I do that because the term African American is not inclusive enough of folks of African ancestry who may be here in the United States, but they come from

the Caribbean or they come from the continent of Africa or from Central or South America. Yeah, that's true. Um, so I want to move now to questions about uh, the

IHIP project, and then from there we'll move into uh, the substance of our interview, your experience at LMU. So a couple of questions about IHIP, and that's the

Inclusive History and Images Project. How did you learn about IHIP? When I got the email inviting me to participate, I'm sorry [laughs].

I think I may have vaguely heard about it in conversation with Dr. Cook in the Dean's Office, but it really became something that I was more fully aware of when I got that email.

Okay. And what made you want to take part in this project once you got that email? Um, the—Zora Neale Hurston had a um, a saying.

She says there's nothing more— and I'm ad libbing—but there's nothing more um, difficult or hard than having an untold story inside of you. And I feel that for people of color, in general,

and then in particular here on LMU's campus, we're an untold story. Um, and if I can help to correct that. I'm right there.

Thank you. Now moving on to the questions about your experiences at LMU. When and where— when were you hired?

I was hired in 1987. And what made you decide to join the LMU family? So I think—first of all, I even found—how I found out about the position was through an African

American faculty member. And um, he—he encouraged me, "You should apply for this position." Now, at the time I was out in the field um,

doing um, clinical work and then also doing training of psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers on substance abuse treatment. Um, and so I was already kind of doing teaching, but it was to a professional audience um, primarily for um, a substance

abuse hospital. And um, when I found out about the position that they wanted somebody who could come in with a focus on substance abuse and teach classes on that,

and I said, "Well, that's that wouldn't be difficult to do." Um, and then I looked more closely at LMU's mission and their Jesuit tradition, and it aligned really well with my

social justice principles. And I thought this could be a place um, I could—you know— I could fit in. And so I said, "Okay, let me give it a

shot." And we are all lucky to have you. Um. You mentioned LMU's mission um, and LMU's mission is committed to the encouragement of learning, the education of the

whole person, and to the service of faith, and the promotion of justice. Um, and you were talking about the importance of these principles to you.

Um, and so our question is, how important were these principles to you before coming to LMU? Yeah, that was my life before coming to LMU. I um, was very much involved in social justice work in

Los Angeles County, particularly around the service needs—mental health service needs and substance abuse service needs—of um, communities of color and in particular South Central Los Angeles. Um, and I had started establishing connections and I became the

"Mikey" of the community. If you remember that old commercial, "Give it to Mikey, Mikey'll try it.

Mikey will try anything." Um, and so that was me. Uh, I had started going to county meetings to—you know— express concerns and to join in support of some of

the community based organizations that were really worried about the direction the county was going in, in terms of substance abuse prevention and treatment. And I could speak up and raise questions and point

out contradictions and inconsistencies in the county's approach and policy, where it would be more difficult for the community based organizations to do that because they had grants and contracts that could be jeopardized.

I didn't have a grant or a contract, so I could just raise my hand and say, "Excuse me, excuse me, you said this, then you pointed out that and then you concluded this and they don't match up for

me. Help me understand." I did the Columbo routine. Help me understand this.

And so between that, and then the education part was very much involved in delivering mental health and substance abuse services. I had a private practice um, that primarily consisted of um, uh, Latino

and—and African American clients. Um, and then I was working in a substance abuse hospital full time, seeing clients and um, and—and there was always an educational component to that.

Plus I was doing the training for the hospital on best practices in substance abuse. But I guess the—and then the whole person component. I always believed in wellness and kind of—you know—um,

having a full and balanced life, even though the demands from graduate school and then post graduate school really—you know—interfered with that. But I was still committed to it.

And so just as I looked at the pillars of LMU's mission, I was like, "These are all very, very consistent with how I've been living my life." Thank you for that.

Um, on the—on the same note—and have you sensed the importance of these principles during your time at LMU? Yes and no. They ebb and flow, and every now and again someone

has to kind of pull LMU's coattail and say, "[Clears throat] Excuse me, remember that mission?" [Laughs.] So um, I've seen it um, in full force. I've seen it—you know—sincerely and earnestly applied.

I see it definitely promoted in the um—in the—the kind of education and socialization of our students. I sometimes see it fall short in university policies, practices, departmental level practices um, and the general treatment of—of faculty

of color, and the lack of understanding about what it is we are contending with as faculty, as social science researchers, or scientists, or researchers in general. And so every now and again, LMU would break my

heart. Um, and I kind of—I think it was in the first five years, I learned a very important lesson.

Um, because if I believe in something or someone, I will wholeheartedly do that, right? I learned fairly early on not to do that with LMU because it—when I would let my guard down, and

I would believe, and trust something would happen, and it would break my heart. And I mean— I mean, it almost makes me want to well up

with tears as I think about it now. Because when you trust and you believe and then you see a violation of that trust and it seems to happen cyclically—you know—um, with changes of administration, with changes

in policy or curriculum, um, with the responsiveness, or lack thereof, to what's going on in the world around us and including in our own backyard, I would let my guard down.

I would trust and I would believe. And then LMU would surface with some of that old— that—that old kind of racially insensitive, racially uninformed, social justice-blinded kinds of—of um, activities or actions. So.

I really love the way you phrased um, your response to this question in terms of yes, no and an ebb and flow in your heart and emotions. Um. I'm going to leave it at that.

Um, and I think it's important that you spoke to all the issues that you just brought up as—as a faculty member of color here at LMU. Um, moving on to um, what organizations or activities have you been

a part of during your time at LMU? Oh, my God. [Laughs.] You know, I started trying to jot that down and I said, "I'll never remember these things," but so I

have my little kind of working list from back in the early, early days, I was on the WASC [Western Association of Schools and Colleges] Accreditation. Um, I was on the Task Force on Faculty Workload and Merit.

I was part of the um, University Diversity Committee— in fact, I chaired it. Um, I co-chaired our Irvine Assessment Committee. Uh, I was a faculty sponsor for Sankofa Society, which were

the Black students trying to raise funds so they could do study abroad in Ghana. Um, I've been on search committees for African American Studies, Asian Pacific American Studies, and other departments.

Um, I was Chair of American Cultures for um, uh, two years—or one year, one or two years. Um, I was part of the graduate program committee for our department.

But I think the thing I'm most proud of and that I hope I'll be remembered for, is that I founded the Kente Graduation, which is the Black student graduation here at LMU, which has been going strong for 30

some odd years now. I founded um, the Mbongi Welcome, which is a series of events, the first week of school for Black students, faculty and staff. Um, and um, I was part of the planning committee

for the Learning Community for Black students um, that is actually wrapping up tomorrow, this year's cohort. Um, and then I started the Ghana Study Abroad program itself. Up to that point, LMU had never had—that

I knew of—a study abroad that touched any part of the continent of Africa, and that just didn't make any sense to me. So I founded a Ghana study abroad, and then while

in the Dean's Office, I helped to get um, South Africa added to that list and Cuba. I'm familiar with the Cuba trip. Haven't gone yet.

Thank you for all of your service to the university. Um, and a follow up question to that. How have these organizations helped shape your experience in your time at LMU?

I would say they've done something very, very important to my well being. It's like my lifeline to a sense of fulfillment, and wholeness, and satisfaction.

They've given me a sense of community, and it's helped to strengthen the sense of community uh, within the Black community here at LMU. And I can definitely say that over my years I

have seen that sense of community grow um, to the point where it's noticeable. People who come and visit—you know—they can tell that we're a tight knit family.

Our students know that—you know—the faculty and staff have their back. Um, back in the day, in my early time—early years at LMU, I can

remember, student protests on this campus. Something—some kind of racial insult would happen and the students would take to protest. And one of those protests involved, back then, the President's

Office was in St. Robert's Hall on the first floor. And the students—I'm blocking at this exact moment on what the actual incident was. But the students were up in arms, and they protested,

and they took over the President's Office. Nobody was going into St. Rob's and nobody was coming out, including the president of the university. And um, and then—you know—a few years later—it was almost

like there was a cycle to it. A few years later, the students took over the campus again. And at that time the only entrance to LMU was

off of um, the residential area and the students blocked that. "You're not going in and you're not coming out," right? And so um—and so anyway, there would there would be these um, kind of massive reactions and responses to injustices.

But we're now at a point where the students—if they go that route—they have already had a family meeting, if you will. Faculty and staff have gotten involved and are advising and

consulting and supporting and trying to make sure that the students are protected in this learning moment, right, that they will be able to take with them once they leave LMU. So the more dramatic um, responses to racism, racial stress,

and racial trauma have subsided, and I think that's because there's such a sense of community. And once we once we know there's something afoot, we can immediately step in and support. We can do the

investigative work to figure out, "Okay, what's the real deal, what's the story, what are the dynamics—you know—what are the leverage points? What are the—the what—what's the ask on the

part of the students?" So there's much more of a coordinated, supported effort borne out of a sense of community. So we haven't seen takeovers.

Now, we I think a few years ago we had— you know—related to all of the uprisings. Etcetera. We had—you know—a march on the campus, but

it was not a takeover. We don't—we don't have to get to that point anymore, I think. And that—and again, I take that back to the

sense of community. And that's what I got out of my involvement with all of these things. I was also giving the students things that I didn't

have when I was an undergrad. I didn't have a study abroad to Africa, but I always wanted to go. And so I was like, "Well, I didn't get to

have one, but I can make sure these students do" and then I can vicariously enjoy it by going with them. [Laughs.] So um, yeah, so and then I didn't have a Black

graduation and I felt—I wished I had um, because in my own I was—I did my undergraduate at Yale, and I had more than my fair share of racism on that campus—

I loved Yale— to this day, I'm very much involved in Yale, particularly diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts on the campus. Um, but—you know—back then I didn't have that.

I didn't have a Black student welcome, although we had what was called "The House." And that's—that was our cultural center. And it was a huge three story facility.

And I lived there and I was very clear that that's what helped me get through—you know—the stress of—of a Yale undergraduate education. Great as it was, it's also stressful.

And so I wanted to make sure that our students had that. Wow. That community you had at that house is something you—

you rebuilt here. That's great. Um. What has it been like being—and I'll use the terms used to identify yourself—

what has it been like being a Black African American um, woman in your time at LMU? And I believe you've already been speaking to a bit of this, but but now we're being a little more

pointed here. Right. It's been— it's been um, a roller coaster ride. There have been some highs and there have been some

definite lows. Um, but—you know—LMU is just a microcosm of the broader society. So there's no place to run,

there's no place to hide. So you pick your spots and you make the best of it. Um, but—you know—I got a taste of what it

would be like to be Black at LMU, actually in my job interview. Um, I'm going to have to out my department a little bit [laughs].

Um, but in the interview we have—everybody has to do a research talk. And so I decided to do my talk on my dissertation topic, which was stress and depression in Black women,

which um—and I—you know—hypothesized that it was going to be um, mediated by levels of social support. Um, that was not the case. And I ended up explaining exactly what we found, which

was that it was the Black women providing the support, and so their stress levels weren't being decreased by the support. It was actually the supports were pulling and drawing on

them more. Um, and so that didn't help to um—you know—modulate their levels of stress or depression. In—when I finished explaining my study—you know—which was done with

some of the best talent in faculty research um, in Psychology at UCLA—because I did my graduate degree at UCLA— one of the white faculty members raised [raises hand]. I'm going to say their hands so I can make

it more hard to figure out who raised their hand and said. "That's all very interesting. Do you plan in the future to do some research

on real populations?" And I—I was so stunned. I had to just pause. Collect myself.

Inside, I took a deep breath and— and then give him back an intelligent response to a totally unintelligent, lacking, bogus, racist question.

Um, so that was my introduction. Then in my first semester, psychology department was in Seaver Hall at this time, and so we could park right behind Seaver Hall.

And so one afternoon, I'm coming in to campus and um, to go to a meeting, and I parked my car and a Jesuit—white Jesuit—came up to

me and said, "Excuse me, but this parking is for faculty only." And I looked. At him and I'm like, I don't see him policing

anybody else's parking behavior. And I looked at him and I said, "I am faculty." And he looked stunned, like, "We don't have young Black

faculty here." So and then—you know—I mean, I have a list of those kinds of things that even—you know— one of the reasons that came to LMU, kind of

going back to one of the earlier questions was—you know—why LMU? And it was about the social justice mission, and a lot of my research, especially once I got

tenure um, was focused on social justice issues. But nonetheless—you know—back then, "publish or perish" wasn't as prominent as it is now. Um, but I had the chair—then chair of the department—

at this particular stage in my career at LMU, tell me, "You need to give up all of that research and focus on your teaching." If I had listened to that chair, I would not

have made tenure or gotten promotion. I had another faculty member who at that time was chair say to me—and I had been doing my sabbatical—my first sabbatical—I was doing fieldwork in Ghana,

Senegal, Nigeria, and Mali, and I was um, doing field research looking at traditional medicine um—African traditional medicine—to try to understand how it might have applicability to um, treatment strategies for African Americans in the United States.

Well, pretty much every country I went to and all of the traditional medical practitioners said, "Your intentions are good. Your—you know—the questions you ask are on point. But this kind of knowledge can't be revealed if you

have not been initiated into the systems of traditional medicine and traditional religion." And so—you know—I kept saying, "But—but I don't want to be initiated.

I just want to learn and then help people with what I learned." Didn't fly. So I ended up having to be initiated in Nigeria, in Ghana, and gone through some

very. intense training in Senegal— It wasn't initiated there, though. Um, and so somehow this chair found out, um, got a little

deeper knowledge of what I was doing. And so we had to meet for some reason. I don't know if it was for the annual review or something.

And the chair said to me—again, I'm going to try to make it gender neutral— the chair said to me. "So does this mean now that you have a little

doll in your office that has my face and you can stick pins in it?" And that just— that just hurt me to my core.

I just I was like, "Wow, how worse of a stereotype can you come up with?" To debase my culture, my heritage, my people, and now my religion.

And I just—you know—so I've done a lot of stuffing here. Here at LMU. I gave her a nice-nice response back.

You know, you do this thing called appeasement, which is a stress response. But at some point, you keep stuffing and you keep stuffing and you keep stuffing, and you start to

do damage to yourself. So I had to—like—like what I did with graduate school, I had to have a reference point that was not LMU.

So the community became my university. And I even talk about the "communiversity" that taught me [laughs] in some of my research talks. But LMU could no longer be a reference point

for me. There was no standard bearing here. There was no—you know—um, orienting or baselining of anything in my work, um, in my professional life because they didn't

get me, they didn't understand me. And even recently, I would say that um, my colleagues don't fully understand the kind of psychology research that I do. And—and um, many have said in their own ways that

what I do is not "real research." It's not empirical, it's not experimental research design. And so therefore, it's not gold standard.

It's not asking some broader—you know—philosophical question around human behavior or some more broad question about human functioning. It's asking pointed questions about real issues in the moment, in communities of color.

And so somehow that makes it less— you know— exemplary of gold standard research. And so I can't—I can't use LMU as a

standard for anything in my professional work. I find that so odd because um, the kind of research you're doing is the kind of research that helps us understand larger ideas—philosophical ideas, if you will—the types

of questions that others are asking here, you have real empirical evidence in real time. Yeah. [Laughs.] Go figure.

It's not my role to comment on what you're saying, so let's move on. Um, I do— I can't help but say thank you for—for the

amount of experiences, appeasement that you have had to do, because it has really helped um, a different generation of faculty of color here on campus. Thank you.

Let's see. So working with students, um—as you've been mentioning, right, in your responses to our questions—working with students is one of our primary duties as faculty at LMU.

Um, is there a teaching experience um, such as a particular course or a teaching moment or an engaged learning experience that stands out um, most to you? That stands out most.

Oh, my gosh. There—there are actually quite a few. And they stand out for different reasons. Can I do two and

I'll make them short? Sure. Okay. Um. One of them was um, in

a um—I'm trying to think—it was in a research methods um, course that I was teaching. Um, and students had to go and help um, update the research design,

and the research tools, the surveys, and qualitative data collection tools, on a project in downtown LA on Skid Row dealing with homelessness. But I didn't want them to just do that from

the classroom. So we did all of the design and tool modification here at LMU. And then I said, "Okay, now it's time for us

to take our show on the road. We're going to Skid Row." And then they were working teams and they would—you know—I took many of them first so they—you know—could get acclimated

and then they started going on their own in teams, to actually collect the data and to interact with the folks. And uh, it was really eye opening for them.

It really challenged a lot of assumptions they had about what it means to be homeless, who is homeless, what are the characteristics of people who are homeless. And it created some cognitive dissonance for them because the

stereotypes and assumptions weren't matching up with what they were seeing, and they were having real connections with um, human beings who had their own stories to tell, who had their own burdens that they carried, who had their own talents,

that they still had in them, and that would shine when given an opportunity. And so at the end of the day, these students had to do a presentation of findings because

it was semester long. So we collected several hundred surveys, and I've forgotten now how many direct observations and qualitative structured interviews. And so—you know—taught them how to analyze the

data, how to package it, and then present it to the staff at the organization that does community organizing on Skid Row with unhoused populations and um, I have never been brought

to tears by my students in the way that they brought me to tears that day. And I literally cried in class, because not only did they uh, do a great job of presenting the material,

but you could tell that it impacted them. Their analysis of things, their— their um, interpretation of findings uh, and the impact that it had on them personally all came through.

The community organization um, United Coalition East Prevention Project— UCEPP—staff were just in awe of the students. It was as though they had become transformed as students. And so that transformation was coupled with they had also

mastered the course material, and the two came together beautifully. And then their delivery was so professional that it just— I just said—I started crying. I said, "I'm sorry,

you guys, you've just made me cry." So that was one. The other one is the transformative experiences that the students

who have taken to Ghana have had. Um, it's not just your regular course and there's like the um, research class they had to do engaged learning. I'm a big fan of engaged learning.

Almost every class I teach—if not every—has an engaged learning component, even intro when I can pull it off. I've had intro students go get cleared and go to

the jails and teach what they're learning in Intro Psych to women incarcerated in the jails in Lynnwood—the jail in Lynnwood. So in any event, these students um—really their identity and

their sense of place and connection, their understanding of the psychology of racism and how it's not just impacted the world, but how it has impacted them. Their—the—the depth of their understanding of their cultural

heritage. All are just really profound for me to watch unfold. But then they take it another step. They end up taking people to Ghana, doing their own

trips with the—you know—bringing their family, bringing their friends. I was just in Ghana three weeks ago for an international conference on reparations. I get a text message, "Nana"—because the students who

go to Ghana call me Nana—um, and they're like, "Nana, I think you're at my hotel." And I'm like, "No, no, I'm—I'm in Ghana." "Yes, I'm here with my family and my godmother,

and—and I'm using the tour company that you exposed us to, and we're doing all the things we did in the study abroad class and then

some." And I was like, "Oh, my God." And then—that was at the beginning of the trip. Then at the end of the trip, I'm sitting at

breakfast in the same hotel. There's another student. I'm like—she's there with her family.

And then my—my colleagues—you know— who are like family in Ghana will tell me, "Oh, one of your students from this particular year, they were here with a small group." Oh, this—

or they'll get an email from one student. She says, "I'm taking the people from my church to Ghana. This is the itinerary.

Do you want to. Give me any feedback on it? I based it on the class." I'm like, "Oh my God." That's amazing.

Yeah.