Honoring Beloved Community Member Shirley Strong

Shirley Strong, M.Ed., M.A., is a valued member of our Beloved Community, serving first as Dean of Students and Director of Diversity, before returning as a consultant to share her expertise. As a consultant, she has facilitated many events with Vice President Rachel Bryant, including the Beloved Community Transformation Series. She also consults with the Provost's Office and the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research, offering talks and workshops on building Beloved Community and increasing belonging. 

With over 20 years of organizational anti-racism and inclusion work, Shirley has honed a skill set that addresses structural injustice holistically, emphasizing care, compassion, and shared responsibility for the work of community. Her forthcoming book, A Handbook for Building Beloved Community: Lessons Learned, draws on her years of work on beloved community and will be published this spring.

In this interview with Division of Community Engagement and Belonging Student Coordinator Sunflower Rose, Shirley shares her experiences and how she came to work with the Beloved Community Initiative. In her words, “Beloved Community is an inclusive, interrelated consciousness based on love, justice, responsibility, shared power and a deep respect for all people, places and things that radically transforms individuals and restructures institutions."

Sunflower: How did you come to work with the Beloved Community Initiative?

Shirley: Beloved Community has been part of my work for over 20 years. I was involved in an anti-racism initiative sponsored by the Levi Strauss Foundation. When I was done, I thought there was something missing in the work we did. We had a fair amount of success, but as we reviewed the lessons we learned from our evaluation, we realized what was missing was a vision of a way to do the work of social justice that didn’t demonize or do harm to each other. I called this vision Beloved Community. It wasn’t a new term, but it was a term that fit the work we wanted to do going forward.

Sunflower: Can you tell me more about your vision for Beloved Community and the work you want to do?

Shirley: I define Beloved Community as an inclusive, interrelated consciousness based on love, justice, responsibility, shared power and a deep respect for all people, places and things that radically transforms individuals and restructures institutions. I believe this is more necessary today than it has been for a long time. We’re at a place where we really need Beloved Community as a way to move forward and bring people together, not in hate, or in mean-spiritedness, but in love and compassion and care for one another while supporting the most vulnerable.

Sunflower: What have you enjoyed most about working on this Transformation series?

Shirley: The people we’ve interviewed. It’s really been a pleasure just to have time to talk with them and allow them to share their journeys with the CIIS community.

Sunflower: Are there folks you are looking forward to inviting whom we haven’t gotten to meet yet?

Shirley: Yes. We’re trying to focus on CIIS alums. We also want to include more alums who are doing work that embodies Beloved Community. When people come to CIIS part of their desire is to serve their communities better, to work with people who need their knowledge and expertise. So, we want to feature the people who go out and do that after they graduate. We also want to feature faculty and others within the community who are working to promote these values. I think our work is about healing. We don’t often use that word; it’s not a word we’re always comfortable with. However, right now we all need to come together to heal ourselves, each other and the larger world.

In times of great anxiety and uncertainty, we tend to turn on each other rather than to each other. So, I would say this is a time to embrace each other, because we are stronger in numbers. We are stronger together.
Shirley Strong

Sunflower: Yes, I truly agree with you. This is my first year at CIIS, but I also have thought we needed more healing; we need more people who can actually do that. How would you describe your journey and your contributions to CIIS and to the division?

Shirley: I came to CIIS in 2006. I was there from 2006 to 2014, first as Dean of Students and later as Director of Diversity in addition to being Dean of Students. Then I left and went to another school. I retired and came back as a consultant. I see my work as a way to deepen our understanding of Beloved Community and what it means for us in the 21st century. I appreciate CIIS for allowing me to do this work when I was there. I did it as a part of student orientation. I introduced it in different ways, and now that I’m back, I’m continuing to do it.

Sunflower: I love that CIIS has been able to be a part of your journey. How might you encourage our broader CIIS community to engage with the division in all of its initiatives?

Shirley: We need to work toward Beloved Community because, regardless of what we call it, the work is standing together, supporting one another, especially the most vulnerable, and helping everyone to achieve their educational goals in order to serve a larger community that is suffering and hurting.

Sunflower: Right. And I know something that is on everybody’s mind right now is how can we help each other? I’m hearing that the CIIS community is eager to do that as a collective, which is really encouraging.

Shirley: I think that’s true. I think a lot of the educational programs here include this priority. Many of the academic programs are designed to connect education with service.

Sunflower: Yes. And my last question is, if you had a soapbox to stand on and say anything to the larger CIIS community, what would it be?

Shirley: Now is the time to be strong and focused — to be clear about who we are and what we stand for, individually and collectively, and to do it in love and care for one another, not just CIIS, but the larger community as well. Often, in times of great anxiety and uncertainty, we tend to turn on each other rather than to each other. So, I would say this is a time to embrace each other, because we are stronger in numbers. We are stronger together.