Meet Salem State's Director of Education and Training, Nikki Pelonia

Nikki Pelonia, Salem State University’s newly installed director of education and training, sits at his desk at the inclusive excellence office in the Administration Building. With his coffee mug in hand, which reads “Defend the Sacred: Land and Women Not For Conquest,” Pelonia was ready to share anything and everything about himself. 

Born in the Philippines and immigrating to the U.S. at a young age, Pelonia spent most of his life on the west coast growing up in sunny Southeast San Diego, a community often referred to as “crime-ridden and impoverished.” A first-generation college student, Pelonia earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and religion from San Francisco State University by way of transferring from Southwestern Community College in Chula Vista, California.

After teaching in Hokkaido, Japan, Pelonia got to know New England during graduate school. At the School of International Training (SIT) Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, Vermont, he completed a master’s degree in intercultural service, leadership, and management. Pelonia has put his knowledge and skills in training for social justice education, community organizing, and consultation to practice at various organizations and schools such as UTEC, The Center for Hope and Healing, The Arc of Change, World Learning, and the Harvard Kennedy School.

This past summer, Pelonia was hired as Salem State’s first director of education and training. During his short time within this role, he has been adapting to the campus and building on the university’s inclusive excellence work. So far, Pelonia has also enjoyed meeting and building new relationships with faculty, staff and students.

Q: Can you describe your thoughts thus far on Salem State University and the city of Salem?

I adore the city of Salem so far. Since it's October, I’m also seeing Salem in its peak form. It’s very festive and filled with lots of tourists. Having grown up in San Diego and the Bay Area, I also enjoy being near the ocean and checking out the shops and restaurants downtown. I really like that Salem is striving to be an inclusive city as well given its population. Even in my short time here, I’ve seen many “No Place for Hate” signs, city cultural festivals with communities of color, and bike lanes that open-up to accommodate disabilities.

Similarly, with Salem State University I’ve learned that we are the most diverse student population within the state colleges of Massachusetts. I understand we have key strategic goals that are aiming towards diversity, equity, and inclusion that have been worked on very intentionally before I joined for relevant impact and outcomes. I also think this is a beautiful campus. Since I’m new to the university and this role, I’ve been meeting many students, faculty, and staff so I can listen and learn more about Salem State University as well as the issues associated with a university committed to inclusive excellence. Everyone has been so great and friendly. I plan to meet more folks and look forward to meeting as many people in our community as I can to learn about the multiculturalism that exists here.

Q: Can you describe what you think about your position/job as the Director of Education and Training, Inclusive Excellence?

I think it says a lot about a university that creates a position dedicated to education and training around social justice, diversity, equity, inclusion, and multiculturalism for its staff, faculty, and students. Also having an inclusive excellence office led by our chief diversity officer, which is soon to be a vice president position, speaks volumes about where Salem State sees its present and future. Also learning that this position was advocated to exist by our students means a lot. To have a position like this be on-campus and full-time means that we will get to be even more accountable to inclusive excellence practices through engaging resources and learning experiences.

I think this position will be an invaluable opportunity to do what I have been doing as a trainer, activist, and community organizer, and that’s to “push,” but not in a physical sense! I mean, “pushing” people out of their comfort zones for deeper critical learning, “pushing” along due to time constraints in workshops, or “pushing” to challenge unjust or unfair policies. I’ve always seen myself as a “pusher,” in this figurative sense, and I believe this position will need to do just that through quality education and training.

I also believe this position will support needed capacity in making sustainable inclusive excellence practices. For example, as an organizer and facilitator, I have learned that the most important components to starting movements and learning is having dedicated space and time for people to meet. I look forward to being responsible for simply planning dedicated spaces and times for folks to convene and co-create learning together. In many ways, that’s the biggest hurdle to meaningful movements.

Q: Can you describe your main objectives for this position?

Building off what I mentioned, one of my main objectives is making it easier for the campus community to just “show up” and participate authentically together. That is, taking care of planning and scheduling programming, guest speakers, or facilitators, designing and implementing high quality, consistent, experiential trainings so that others’ no longer need to be on top of their already very busy jobs! I have a passion and dedication towards that, and I believe this position will relieve capacity off from those that have been carrying those responsibilities. I am also hoping this position succeeds in supporting the ongoing sustaining work needed to be an inclusive excellence university. While we will certainly continue to have external facilitators and programming, they won’t be “one-and-done.” My main priority will be to continue to build off of those powerful community learning experiences even when the official programming is over; through group resources, dialogues, additional workshops, and so on.

For me to be successful in this position, I do believe I need to meet objectives that work towards the goal of social justice. I like to use Adams, Bell, and Griffin’s definition of social justice in Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice: “full and equal participation of all groups in a community that is [co-created] to meet the members’ needs. Social justice includes a vision of a community that is equitable, and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure.” Another objective of mine is to help us realize that we are all lifelong learners working towards this goal and to continue building a university culture that honors both healing and accountability through transformative theory and practice. Where we’ll all start together is just about being human; that we all have implicit biases, so we need to unpack that to reduce harm. I do believe that process needs the right amount of discomfort while balancing it to be engaging and fun!

My main objective right now, which will be ongoing through my time here, is to continue to listen and learn, to share, listen more, and to connect with people. To continue to gather and collect information to affirm best practices for inclusive excellence education and training. And I do believe that objective is met by building strong relationships based on trust and shared values.

Q: Is there a particular reason as to why you were drawn to this position?

I think this is an amazing opportunity for me and I am very grateful to be in this position. In ways this position was a career goal. This position holds responsibilities that are culminative aspects of what I have been engaged in the last decade and passionately continue to practice: design and train for social justice education, strategic organizing, and community building. Essentially, my passion and this position intersect by combining both “head” and “heart” through transformative theory and practice with people committed, or “activated,” to bringing social change. When I first came to Salem State and met Rebecca Comage, interim chief diversity officer, and our colleagues, I saw firsthand that this is a campus community that sincerely cares, and that drew me closer to this position and university.

To be honest, this position being at Salem State University, a state university, and returning to higher education also drew me in. I personally found success in higher education as a struggling college student, which activated me to intensely learn more about identity, power, privilege, and systems of oppression. It wasn’t until learning that in higher education where I better understood the multitude of identities I have which also inherently hold many barriers and also benefits from privilege. In certain ways, I can relate to and understand what some of our diverse student population is going through in trying to succeed at a state university. Since higher education impacted me so greatly, I knew I always wanted to return after working in the non-profit field, bringing with me my knowledge, skills, and foundations in popular education, critical pedagogy, restorative justice, and experiential learning. This position continues to and will continue to draw me in as a consistent charge to co-create best practices with our campus community. That is very exciting to me.

Q: Can you describe what you think are the biggest opportunities and hurdles here at Salem State thus far?

I recently completed the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI) training. Rebecca and the Salem State NCBI team started this about a year and a half ago and we now have roughly up to fifteen people across campus that have been trained to facilitate the NCBI model with students, staff, and faculty. This is an amazing opportunity! We will be pushing more of this forward soon which I am honored to help lead.

We also just finished piloting a collaborative that brought staff, faculty, students and Salem community members together to celebrate Latinx Heritage Month/Hispanic Heritage Month. Many of the cultural heritage and identity awareness-raising events, such as Black History Month every February and Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May, are great opportunities that could allow us to co-create and institutionalize meaningful programming with and for the entire campus community. Faculty and staff are also implementing practices in their classrooms or their departments that are making the spaces more inclusive that I would love to build upon and support.

There is also a great opportunity to build community through affinity and engagement with our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs). There are currently five ERGs for employees who are Asian, Black, Family Caregivers, Latinx, and/or LGBQ & T. Employees can and are encouraged to join and participate in any and all ERGs they identify with.

There are many opportunities from the Leadership, Engagement, Advocacy and Diversity (LEAD) office and what they’re doing with student organizations and their student-centered approaches to learning more about identity, power, privilege and oppression. I also found that being able to partner with First Year Experience (FYE) through the First Year Reading Experience (FYRE) is a very impactful opportunity, really being the catalyst to every academic year.

There are many big opportunities and I am hoping we can also continue to meaningfully bridge them together to better integrate, support, and strengthen the Salem State local, community, and national movements.

In this work, I feel one hurdle that is constant, which isn’t unique to Salem State and present in all institutional structures, is overcoming the power dynamics within these systems that maintain oppression so that we can be closer to the goal of social justice. It’s definitely a big hurdle but necessary to get through together.

Q: Can you describe what you have done so far during your time in this role? What are your overall plans that you would like to share?

Since arriving this summer, I have been researching and reading a lot of the inclusive excellence work that has already been done. For example, the campus climate survey in 2017. As I mentioned I have also been meeting with several staff, faculty, and students to really listen and learn more about what is going on now. I have also been seeing different student organizations and attending different events as much as possible so I can learn more about the campus culture.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m grateful to be a part of the Latinx Heritage Month Collaborative. We had 15 events in celebration of the month and if you parse it out, it’s one event every other day which is truly a phenomenal feat. True recognition should go to the students, Latin American Student Organization (LASO) and the staff, faculty, and community members that have not only helped bring these events together this year, but also the past several years.

I have been working more closely with the NCBI team. I have also been getting to better acclimate with our ERGs. I hope to better support both the NCBI team and ERGs as their designated “point person” so that each are empowered and set up for success.

I also had opportunity to contribute towards the Women's Leadership Mastermind program in partnership with human resources and the School of Continuing and Professional Studies. Inclusive excellence sponsored seven SSU women employees to participate in the program to further their own leadership skills.

Lastly, I just plan to continue to listen, get acquainted, build relationships, and contribute where I can which will help us in addressing salient issues and developing an effective plan of action towards inclusive excellence and transformative justice.

Q: What are your hobbies and interests outside of work?

My hobbies include: biking, traveling, exploring and learning about other cultures, dancing, singing, playing music, yoga, staying active, trying different food and checking out local coffee shops. 

My interests include: movies, music, audiobooks, and my pets. I have a dog and a cat, which makes me a proud dog and cat dad along with my partner. 

Q: Do you want to share any particular favorites of yours? For example: movie(s), TV show(s), food, restaurant, ice cream, etc.

I am a big fan of all of Ana DuVernay’s work from the film 13th to When They See Us. Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Us are great. I’m a huge fan of ice cream and desserts. Melt, Treadwells, and Kakawa in Salem have been my favorites so far.

Q: Are there any books that you would like to recommend to your colleagues?

I am currently reading When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir by Patrisse Khan-Cullors. My other latest reads include: There There by Tommy Orange, How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, The Body Papers: A Memoir by Grace Talusan, Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown and Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi. Some all-time favorites I’d also recommend: Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur, Pedagogy the Oppressed by Paulo Friere, Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements by Charlene Carruthers, and anything and everything by bell hooks, James Baldwin and Angela Y. Davis.