Culture of Dignity | 007 | Lead with Kindness
If the approach to equity feels like punishment, don’t expect progress.
Sometimes one sharp insight is all we need to hold on, reset, or reengage with purpose.
Practical takeaways pulled from the Student Success Podcast, so you don’t have to listen to the whole episode (unless you want to).
Episode with faculty developer, Diego Navarro: Show Notes | Apple | Spotify
What Stuck with Me from Diego Navarro
I’ve interviewed Diego Navarro twice on the Student Success Podcast. His first podcast episode has the highest downloads of all episodes. One of the many things I love about Diego is that he doesn’t try to impress you. He tries to move you. Not with fire-and-brimstone speeches, but with insight earned from decades of working alongside students and educators. We have similar approaches by centering kindness in the equity work so it’s always a pleasure to have him on.
This episode hit differently. Diego doesn’t just talk about transformation. He names the barriers, the behaviors, and the beliefs that keep people stuck. And he’s not afraid to say when a well-meaning “equity” effort actually does more harm than good.
From Yellow Lighters to Green Lighters
I’ve used a red, yellow, and red lighter metaphor for years. In equity work, you have green lighters (the all-in and engaged), red lighters (the blockers), and yellow lighters (those indifferent or against the fence).
From my experience, yellow lighters are often the majority. And until we find ways to move them, nothing meaningful really changes. Most professional development misses the mark because it preaches to the green ones.
According to Diego, build systems of care and community that give yellow lighters the courage, support, and clarity to move.
If your campus has 20+ siloed initiatives but no shared reflection space, you’re probably not reaching the yellow lighters in a meaningful way to change to green.
What approaches are helping them become green lighters? What approaches might be pushing them further into red?
Equity Training by Insult Doesn’t Work
This was a reality check for many colleges: Diego critiques racial equity scholars/consultants who lead with judgment and shame. When PD starts with accusation and creates an environment of threat, it backfires. Faculty and other college professionals shut down. And the same cycles of defensiveness continue.
Is your campus mistaking confrontation for transformation?
Is your PD rooted in shared humanity and effective pedagogy?
Are campus rivalries addressed or are they allowed to fester?
“There's science behind this. That when you trigger people, their cortex is shut down. Do you want people to learn or do you want them to just react? If they create an environment where it's a threat--threat means the amygdala searching for threat because once it sees that, it goes in fight, flight, freeze, or appease. If they create an environment of threat, people are going to be heightened and they're going to be defensive. So what they have to do is create a culture of healing or a culture of dignity or what I like to call a culture of love. You have to open people's hearts. That's where the change really happens because as you open people's hearts and they feel safe, they can learn at an accelerated way--what I call deeper learning. So they're shooting themselves in the foot whenever they're creating these threatening environments."
Why Marginalized Students Struggle to Stay
Diego doesn’t offer abstract answers here. He names real conditions: lack of belonging, the emotional weight of being “othered,” and the fear of failure without a net.
He reminds us that students don’t fail because they’re unmotivated. They leave because the signals they receive say they don’t belong. And when every mistake feels like a final judgment, survival becomes more important than success.
What messages (explicit or not) are we sending to our most vulnerable students?
Are our policies designed for perfection or persistence?
"I help faculty understand the strengths of our students because many of our faculty see the strengths of our students as weaknesses. For example, marginalized students know how to work in teams. We need to take that strength and start doing team based-learning with them. They've also overcome a lot of adversity in their life. They've dealt with trying to do things without having much money and much resources. They're very innovative and they're always solving problems. So how can we start doing problem-based learning with them so we can take that strength that they have and apply it."
Inspiration Is an Intervention
Diego argues that inspiration isn’t fluffy. It’s strategic. For marginalized students, seeing someone who understands them or simply believes in them can be the intervention that keeps them going.
How often do students hear “you belong here,” not just in writing, but in tone, body language, and curriculum?
Resistance Mindsets Are Real, But Not Always Fixed
Diego challenges us not to demonize resistance but to understand it. Resistance is too often rooted in trauma, fear, or the belief that change equals failure.
Do we have strategies to meet resistance, not to avoid it?
This episode reminded me that equity work without emotional intelligence is performance.
That belonging isn’t a program, it’s a culture.
And that shifting people from yellow to green is slow, intentional work, but it’s critical to improving equitable outcomes.
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Onward…
Dr. Al Solano
Founder, Continuous Learning Institute | About
Host, Student Success Podcast
A meaningful test of success is how helpful we are in contributing to our fellow human being’s happiness.