“I will believe in students' competence and intelligence. I will keep faith...that they have stories to tell, things to explain, and the language with which to do those things. I will reject any notion that places in my mind a belief in students' deficits -- whether those deficits be genetic, cultural, or behavioral. I will treat them as people who can get important things done for important reasons.”

“What we really have to do is stop the adjective before the job title—whether it's 'black actor,' a 'gay actor' or 'anything actor,' Everybody thinks that equality comes from identifying people, and that's not where equality comes from. Equality comes from treating everybody the same regardless of who they are. I hope the media and the press catches on to that because it's time to move out of 1992.”

“Do not tell people how to live their lives. Just tell them stories and they will figure out how those stories apply to them.”

“People are more important than things.”

“Getting people to welcome feedback was the hardest thing I ever had to do as an educator.”

“educators best serve students by helping them be more self-reflective. The only way any of us can improve—as Coach Graham taught me—is if we develop a real ability to assess ourselves. If we can’t accurately do that, how can we tell if we’re getting better or worse?”

“The great thing about working out at a gym is that if you put in effort, you get very obvious results. The same should be true of college. A professor’s job is to teach students how to see their minds growing in the same way they can see their muscles grow when they look in a mirror.”