STONE WALLS is honored to welcome Larry Chavis as a guest writer today. Chavis is the director of UNC’s American Indian Center and an associate professor in the Kenan-Flagler Business School. He also serves on the University Commission for History, Race, and a Way Forward, where he has been an active and impassioned member.
CW: depression, suicide ideation
At the business school, Chavis is a clinical associate professor of strategy and entrepreneurship and travels the globe with students to study businesses in emerging markets. As an economist, his research focuses on the impacts of institutions in developing countries, and he has also studied boycotts. He frequently speaks with his students about issues around mental health, race, and inequality, and next academic year he will participate in the American Council on Education Fellows Program. He is a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, grew up in Lumberton, and returned to his home state to teach after earning graduate degrees from Stanford and Cornell.
After last month’s Faculty Council meeting, comments made by Mr. Chavis during a question period received a bit of attention. I reached out to him because he seemed like someone who had something important to say. He’s written a heartfelt essay below about his life and experiences at UNC that is both serious and humorous. It appears following his comments from the Faculty Council meeting, for context.
February 2021 Faculty Council meeting:
“I’ll throw out a question if everybody else is going to be quiet. Chancellor, I agree we can move on from Silent Sam and focus on the diversity issues and people that are here now and are feeling silenced and marginalized. I’m still at the same point where I made basically the same comment this time last year. Which is, I’m director of the American Indian Center and a professor in the business school; as a professor in the business school, I’m very well taken care of and supported — UNC’s nominated me and will support me on basically a leadership training sabbatical next year that I’m not supposed to announce yet, so you didn’t hear that — but as director of the American Indian Center, I was just working on my resignation letter because I can’t go in again and look the women that I work with in the face knowing how underpaid they are.
“[Faculty chair] Mimi [Chapman] was talking about the incredible stress this is on minority faculty. This is hard. I really cannot do it. And I refuse to do it. Because when I hear and see in the news that we got $8 million to fund a speaker series in the Center for Public Discourse and we can’t find an extra $10,000 to help pay my staff that are way underfunded, I mean that … the Abbeys, I think, decided on that. But someone in development led that money that way, right? And we’re deserving also. And I think we have more of an impact than a speaker series that will … yeah, anyway. So this is really hard when you talk about a $5 million Build Our Community Together fund and that’s our strategic initiative. I’m not feeling that.”
Build Our Community Together is UNC’s diversity and inclusion initiative.
“I’ve been asked through my work on the history task force to write the land acknowledgement for UNC to acknowledge that you’re on our land. It’s like me writing my own thank you note for a gift that was taken from me. I’m not excited about that. And I’m tired. I’m tired of being in the same place I was this time last year, as far as funding and my level of belonging at this university. So I will stop there. I appreciate the good things but there’s a lot of tough things as well. And hopefully the next director of the American Indian Center can figure out a way to make this better.”
A year prior, Chavis pointed out that the American Indian Center’s staff size had decreased from five people to two during his tenure, according to the Daily Tar Heel. “Chavis said these budget constraints are disheartening because the American Indian Center does important work embracing the tribes of North Carolina and for him, their history is not ‘abstract.’ In 1865, two of Chavis’ relatives were killed by Confederates.” At that meeting, Chavis added: “While the sons of Confederates are well funded, the sons of their victims struggle to have their voice heard on campus and in our state.”
Larry loves steak and the American Indian Center
By LARRY CHAVIS
I’VE ONLY BEEN INDIAN for a few years and Indigenous for even less than that. I’ve always been Lumbee though. I was born in the northern Lumbee outpost of Baltimore and grew up in Robeson County, North Carolina. The thing is, I don’t look like a mascot. I’m not sure that I have the “high cheekbones” Elizabeth Warren associates with being Indian. When I first started working in the business school, one of the accounting professors told me that he was so happy to have someone who was “nominally” Native American on the faculty. I had to look that up. Nominally means “in name only.”
That didn’t help me believe I was Indian. It also didn’t help that the professor headed the tenure and promotion committee. He mentioned, too, that we had a “nominally” Hispanic graduate student. I guess he expected me to wear a feather, and the student a sombrero. Yes, that sounds ridiculous. But truthfully, there are current UNC students who’ve witnessed a business professor wear a sombrero, play maracas, and sing “La Cucaracha,” as he did multiple times a year for decades whenever he lectured on global business and Mexico. On the bright side, I crush it when I get together with other Natives and we compare microaggressions.
I knew I was Lumbee growing up because I went to a Lumbee church, Reedy Branch Baptist. Most of my family was Lumbee (my mom is descended from German and Irish immigrants). I have a very Lumbee last name. And I had a bit of a Lumbee accent when I left the mobile home where I’d grown up to attend the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. But being Indian was different. Not everyone thinks that Lumbee are “real Indians,” and we are not federally recognized. It was only by working at the American Indian Center (AIC) that I became Indian and even Indigenous. Or I should say, that I realized how Indian I am.
The AIC staff taught me so much about what it means to be Indian, what it means to be part of a North Carolina Indian community. They helped me understand that while I might not look like a mascot, I do look very Lumbee. That being Indian is about being part of a community and recognized as a member of a group of other Indians, a tribe. Reading UNC historian and friend Malinda Maynor Lowery’s work on Lumbee history and identity taught me about our shared Indian heritage.
I now wear my “Indigenous AF” t-shirt (that means “At 50,” right?) with a pride I didn’t have a few years ago. This is a key reason I fight for the American Indian Center. I fight to repay the staff for all they have taught me. I also firmly believe that in order to demonstrate that “Build Our Community Together” is a top priority at UNC, the AIC needs to be better supported. The AIC and similar centers are highlighted in the announcement of the Build Our Community Together Fund, an “unrestricted fund [that] provides financial support to the people and programs on our campus that are dedicated to creating a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive Carolina.”
Only days before I had been staring at the AIC budget fearful that hard staffing choices would need to be made if we didn't receive more funding soon. Ultimately, the irony and stress are too much, and I’ve decided to step down this summer as director of the AIC for its betterment. I haven’t done my best to leave the Center on solid financial footing. I share some of the blame with the UNC administration. I hope I am clearing the way for a new director to build a better foundation.
Becoming director of the AIC helped me grow as a professor and a community leader. Heck, at 50 I’m almost an elder in the community. Working at the Center guided me to the path that I’d never realized I was looking for. When I was growing up in Robeson County, scoring 99% on standardized tests seemed like a big deal. I had good grades and did what I was told. I thought the sky was the limit. As a teenager, I imagined my life would turn out like Don Johnson’s on Miami Vice: a waterfront home with a speed boat in Miami. Why else would you do all that homework? But that didn’t turn out to be the path for me … though I won’t rule out a boat at some point. What the Center provided was a path to belonging.
HAVING A LUMBEE dad and a white mom, I did stand out a bit in our Lumbee community. Neighbor kids sometimes called me half-breed or honky. Being geeky didn’t help me much. One day in seventh grade, my glasses broke and had only one arm to go with my hand-me-down boots and my cousin’s old jeans. The boots were tall, yet the ill-fitting pants didn’t reach them. High-waters was our term for that. An eighth-grader took a look at me on the playground and said, “I bet that kid never eats steak.” To this day, I spend too much money on steaks. Just last week, I asked for three ribeyes at the counter in Whole Foods. When the steaks went on the scale, I wanted to ask to put one back. I wish I had. But in my mind, that kid on the playground was still watching me.
I earned a PhD in economics from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. It was a rock-star program. When I graduated, I interviewed at “top” schools and received offers from Kenan-Flagler, Georgia Tech, the University of Minnesota, Case Western, and UNC-Pembroke. Career-wise, coming to Carolina was risky. My visit here did not include a presentation on my research. I guess they were afraid nobody would show up to learn about corruption in Indonesian villages. I threw myself into teaching and working with students and struggled with research. I probably would have gotten tenure at the other schools, but it didn’t work out that way at UNC.
I was advised not to apply for tenure because if I was rejected, I might not be able to stay on and teach. I felt no one was willing to put their reputation on the line to help me through the process as they had with other cases in the recent past. I remember sitting in the business school’s parking deck after it became clear I would not receive tenure. I imagined what it would feel like to leap off the parking deck, the wind rushing past me and the end of my profound sadness. After 11 years of graduate school (a PhD and two master’s degrees) and seven years on the tenure track, I felt like my life was falling apart.
(Before the pandemic, UNC was on the verge of implementing a needed new set of tenure guidelines that would, among other things, remove the time limit to achieve tenure and take into account all the “invisible work” minority faculty contribute to the University such as serving on commissions and task forces and much more. If those guidelines had been in place before, I would be tenured today.)
Not completing the tenure track unsettled me, and I questioned how I fit within the Kenan-Flagler community. I wanted to become a leader, maybe a chancellor or a provost. But without tenure, I couldn’t even become a department chair. I could never “manage” a tenured professor or have some sway over their career. I had not proven myself “worthy.” I did move up a rank from the teaching track a few years ago to clinical associate professor, but my promotion came with no raise. We have a framework that looks like the tenure track but with very few of the perks. Even when I was on the tenure track, I was the lowest-paid professor on that track for quite a while. (Campus deans, if you only have two or three minority faculty, make sure they aren’t at the very bottom in salary.) But with all that said, there are many professors in far less secure positions who aren’t nearly as well paid as I am. So the business school did reward me financially even if I never quite found a sense of belonging.
IT TOOK a few years, but I did eventually begin wrestling with the anxiety and depression that had gripped me in the parking garage that day. Zoloft is a wonderful thing. As part of my therapy, I discovered at 50 that I also have ADHD. That actually led me to wonder if I could have requested some accommodations on the tenure track, similar to how many of my students get extra time on tests. Therapy has certainly helped me better identify my strengths and weaknesses. But what’s really helped me find my place at UNC was becoming the director of the AIC. The American Indian Center and Native community helped put me back together and gave me a cause to be passionate about. Becoming Indian also helped me to become a leader.
I didn’t get great vibes from South Building after my comments at the faculty council meeting, but the community support has been overwhelming. One Native friend wrote to say, “I stayed up much of the night thinking about your concise courage and how much you spoke for me in those moments and how grateful I am. Your statements were so moving and powerful, and I felt seen.” I received an outpouring of support from current and former students. One nearly brought me to tears with the following note: “I truly look up to people like you who fight so hard for all of us, and have been successful despite obstacles. It’s my biggest motivation to continue going, and hopefully, I can be able to do the same when it’s time. Thank you again for everything!”
I wouldn’t trade that for tenure.
The classroom is where I first felt belonging in the business school. One student wrote to me: “I'm sorry for the ongoing harm caused to you and your colleagues (at a university where the leadership looks like me) and hope to support your work any way that I can.” That meant a lot. We need allies to move the needle and it helps me realize my time in the business school hasn’t been wasted. I never quite fit into the Kenan-Flagler mold and I’ve largely stopped trying. Now I wear a bolo tie when I teach. Last night I wore a BLM-themed bolo for my executive education class. I want my students to know me for who I am, not just as an empty suit.
They already know most of the stories in this article, so donning a BLM bolo isn’t a big deal. I also hope students who had not seen themselves in other business school professors, can see a bit of themselves in me. They might see themselves in the math nerd, the guy with bad dad jokes, someone who struggles with anxiety and ADHD, my gay pride watch band, the Black Lives Matter bolo, the hip N7 Nike shoes, or in the outspoken Lumbee guy going off on tangents. I just hope what they see will help them find peace and belonging in their career and beyond.
P.S.
If you've made it this far, you deserve a more relevant picture of me. I probably borrowed way too much money to buy this car, but it screams, “This guy can eat steak every day.” Get your own t-shirt at Super Indian, which is owned by a Lumbee woman who is a UNC graduate. I appreciate Mike Ogle providing this platform. I can't thank my wife, Ruth, enough for tolerating all the venting generated by the experiences described above. The AIC recently received a new round of funding from the Provost's office. Fortunately, there are no layoffs in our near future. The Daily Tar Heel has more this week on the AIC’s struggles.
ONE GOOD THING: Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo Nation in New Mexico whose family goes back 35 generations on this land, was sworn in Tuesday as secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, becoming the first American Indian to hold a Cabinet-level position in United States history. Yes, it’s 2021 and we’re still having firsts that big. But firsts are better than nevers.
SOURCES & CREDITS:
Larry Chavis bio: UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School
UNC Faculty Council Meeting, February 2021
“Faculty Council met in the midst of a budget impasse and lasting Silent Sam concerns” from January 20, 2020: Daily Tar Heel
UNC Commission on History, Race, and a Way Forward meetings
Larry Chavis photo: UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School
Deb Haaland photo: Deb Haaland for Congress
Another former student of yours. You were one of the best professors at Kenan-Flagler. I also didn't feel like I fit in there but the way I handled it was mostly by keeping my feelings close and not letting people know how I felt. But I still think about your development economics class years after I took it. So thank you.
Former student of yours here. Appreciated every word of this. If you decide to leave your loss will be devastating for KF. You were and are, as far as I am aware, one of the most universally beloved and respected profs at KF. This says something special of both your character and your skills as educator, given that your views and perspective are quite far from those of the median KF student. If you decided to apply for tenure, I am sure that 100s of former students would offer their support (though not sure to what extent this matters). Very few profs that I could say this of. Best of luck with everything.