Dr. Brandelyn Tosolt, Education

Name:

Dr. Brandelyn Tosolt

Title:

Associate Professor

Department:

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership, and Policy

Describe your research in about 200 words.

My research focuses on disrupting norms in educational institutions and is grounded in the words of the Combahee River Collective: “If Black women were free, it would mean that everyone else would have to be free since our freedom would necessitate the destruction of all the systems of oppression”. I amplify voices and perspectives from critical traditions and sociology; challenge norms around authorship, citation, and the norms of academic writing; and share critical pedagogical perspectives in teaching and learning, Regardless of the specific content of a component of my research agenda, I strive to create a sense of spaciousness within educational leadership, a discipline that has been too-often dominated by managerial perspectives and the logics of patriarchy. I am collaborative in my approach and am particularly interested in working with emergent scholars as they enter into the often-gatekept space of academic writing. My work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Negro Education, Multicultural Perspectives, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Journal of LGBT Youth, Impacting Education, and Women’s Studies Quarterly.

What’s the most interesting thing you have learned from a student?

Almost everything I know I’ve learned from a student! For example, I asked a 5th grade Detroit Public School student “Could you please pick up your pencil?” and that student responded “No”. What I learned in debriefing that interaction was that I had been academically prepared but was completely unprepared to engage with people whose lived experiences were different than my own. That experience occurred almost a quarter of a century ago, and I’ve learned something from each of the students with whom I’ve gotten to work in the intervening years. Each has challenged me and helped shape who I am today. Continuous curiosity and an openness and willingness to change — these are perhaps the most interesting and important things I’ve learned from students. I carry these lessons into every interaction and am eager to be challenged and shaped by new perspectives at UNM.