00:00:00:01 - 00:00:20:12 

Darice 

Hello everyone! Welcome to today's episode of Yale College Voices. For those who don't know me, I'm your host, Darice Corey, and I'm thrilled to introduce you to today's guest, my colleague Ferentz Lafargue. Welcome, Ferentz, thank you for joining me today! 

00:00:20:17 - 00:00:22:20 

Ferentz 

Thank you, thank you for having me. 

00:00:17:23 - 00:00:28:12 

Darice 

Awesome! Ferentz, I'm going to read your bio and then we'll just have a conversation. 

00:00:28:12 - 00:00:29:19 

Ferentz 

Sounds great. 

00:00:30:00 - 00:01:07:04 

Darice 

Ferentz is Yale College's Associate Dean of Residential College Life. Prior to stepping into this role in July of 2023, Ferentz was Saybrook College's Residential College Dean from 2018 to 2023. He also serves as the director of Yale College's Mellon Mays and Edward A. Bouchet Undergraduate Fellowship Programs. Much of Ferentz’s work in higher education centers around infusing what he refers to as the three pillars of student life on campus. 

00:01:08:06 - 00:01:36:10 

Darice 

These include helping a student develop a sense of self, a sense of place, and a sense of responsibility. In other words, Who am I? Where am I? What am I called to do? Therefore, whether the setting is a one-to-one meeting with a student, a group training session with Yale College's First Year Counselors, or FroCos as we call it here at Yale College, or being present as the Mellon Mays and Bouchet students present their work. 

00:01:36:12 - 00:02:04:23 

Darice 

Ferentz is always actively looking for opportunities to facilitate students to thrive, inch closer into their goals, and find a way to embrace where they are currently present, be it in their residential college or the city of New Haven more broadly. Ferentz is also an author. He’s the author of Songs in the Key of My Life. 

00:02:05:01 - 00:02:46:20 

Darice 

His writing has appeared in many venues such as 215 Mag, Americas Quarterly, The Huffington Post, Next American City, Social Science Research Council, and Social Text: Periscope. Ferentz’s work outside of academia also extends into ventures as varied as district marketing. From 2007 to 2009, he served as director of the organization Nostrand Park, which was devoted to promoting small businesses in the arts along the Nostrand Avenue corridor in Crown Heights. 

00:02:46:22 - 00:03:33:23 

Darice 

Prior to completing his Ph.D. in African-American and American Studies at Yale University, Ferentz earned a B.A. in Africana Studies and English at Queens College, CUNY. The list of colleges in universities where he has either delivered presentations or served on staff include The Catholic University of America, Williams College, Eugene Lang College, Dartmouth College, University of California: Irvine, University of California: Riverside, Tufts University, and Wesleyan University. Here are a couple of things that I learned about Ferentz that I didn't know until now. Ferentz, you're currently working on two manuscripts. 

00:03:34:00 - 00:03:35:09 

Ferentz 

Yes. I think that's as aspirational as much as anything. 

00:03:35:09 - 00:03:46:12 

Darice 

Yeah, great, great. I can't wait to hear more. You're also of Haitian descent. 

00:03:46:14 - 00:03:47:02 

Ferentz 

Yes. 

00:03:47:06 - 00:04:02:17 

Darice 

I'd love to hear more about that one when we have our conversation. Again, welcome. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this today and being a brave soul of all of our podcast guests. I'm really happy that you decided to join me today. 

00:04:02:18 - 00:04:04:15 

Ferentz 

Oh, it's my pleasure. 

00:04:58:17 - 00:04:14:18 

Darice 

Can you share some insights about growing up or your early college years and how that shaped your values and interests? 

00:04:14:20 - 00:04:39:14 

Ferentz 

Yes, I was born in Haiti, but I grew up in Jamaica, Queens, New York. I migrated to the United States when I was five years old. Now, New Haven is on the verge of eclipsing New York City as a place I have lived the longest. It was my parents and my younger sibling. 

00:04:40:06 - 00:05:09:07 

Ferentz 

I can't call him my little brother anymore. He’s a grown man nor am I young enough to be saying little. We grew up, went to public schools all my life. I tell people that Yale, when I came here as a graduate student, was the first place, the first school that I ever attended where I couldn't walk from my parents apartment in Queens or at least it'd be a very long walk if I did try it. 

00:05:10:07 - 00:06:06:00 

Ferentz 

I went to Jamaica High School, which I really loved. Got a chance to play baseball in high school. I really found one of my first real passions, which was journalism. I worked at the school newspaper, I worked for a citywide paper, did several journalism internships, both in high school and college. When I first went to Queens College, I thought that I was going there with the aspiration of one day becoming a sports columnist for one of the New York papers. I envisioned that I'd be spending a good chunk of my adult life covering the Knicks, Yankees or any of the New York teams that I grew up watching and enjoying.  

00:06:07:00 - 00:07:03:09 

Ferentz 

My first year, I had a wonderful English professor, Jean Bobb, who I'm still very close to. She put the idea of graduate school and pursuing a Ph.D. into my mind. I didn't embrace it at first, I’m going to be honest about that. I was like, no, I'm here to be a journalist. By sophomore year, the idea of spending an incredible amount of time reading, reading stuff that I love and writing about things that I enjoy just became so tantalizing. So, I did a Mellon Mays fellowship when I was an undergraduate at Queens College, which helped me to set the path for doing a Ph.D. in African-American studies. 

00:07:04:09 - 00:07:32:20 

Ferentz 

The other thing that the experience at Queens College really taught me was that I was really interested, I didn’t know it at the time, in what is I guess now student life or student affairs. I spent a great amount of time helping different campus organizations do programming. I worked for the school news and I worked for the college newspaper. I was an editor at the paper. 

00:07:33:21-00:08:02:04 

Ferentz 

Teaching, even at the K-12 level, was something that always stayed in the back of my mind. I didn't realize this at the time, but what I was really looking to reconcile was how do I find a way to do these things that I really, really enjoy. Being in a school or classroom setting and working with young people. 

00:08:03:06 - 00:08:46:18 

Ferentz 

Over time, I think I ended up finding the spaces in a career. Whether it was serving as a literature professor, or over the last decade and a half being an administrator and a different number of capacities at colleges and universities, which have allowed me to get some time in the classroom, get a significant amount of sort of one on one and kind of student development time as well, and working with students both in and out of the classroom. So, that's kind of how I got to the point where I am today. 

00:08:46:19 - 00:09:04:01 

Darice 

That’s awesome. Before you completed your Ph.D., like all of the experience you had prior to that, how did it shape into your community engagement, advocacy, and things like that? 

00:09:04:03 - 00:09:49:09 

Ferentz 

I was the first person in my family to go to college, so I didn't have a blueprint for what I was doing. So a lot of the things that I did or have done in my life have been trial and error. I've had really great mentors, but at the same time there was not an immediate blueprint for what I was trying to do. There was one thing that always stood out, that I benefited greatly from people who looked out for me, people who either took me under their wing, both directly or indirectly. 

00:09:49:09 - 00:10:23:23 

Ferentz 

I always had a sense of feeling or a desire to give back. From the time that I was in high school, volunteering in my church, I grew up Catholic, I coached CYO basketball for several years, both in high school and college. Later on in life, I would volunteer. 

00:10:23:23 - 00:11:16:06 

Ferentz 

I remember the first time that it really hit me that early childhood education or sort of elementary education was not my calling. I was doing an after school program for third graders, essentially.  

The program was basically to have them do a mini production and using poetry as a way of getting them interested and excited about writing. With the goal of the production, sort of the performance, they were great. They were there every week, they were excited every time that they did the reading. 

We would read a verse or two from the poem we're doing. This was in Brooklyn, so I remember it as a series of Jean Jordan poems. 

00:11:17:08 -  00:12:03:14 

Ferentz 

They were really good at that part. The day after their presentation, I remember going back to the program and I said, all right, this is what we're reading today. They said, no, we're not. Like, wait a minute. No, no, no this is what we're reading. Then, they just started running around. The other thing is that the auditorium was also the gym of this school so they're like, no, we're playing dodgeball. They were jumping off the stage and there was no way that I felt as if I knew how to reel them in. 

00:12:03:21- 00:12:39:09 

Ferentz 

I was like okay, the community service thing, I'm still down for that. If I ever had any aspirations of being an elementary school teacher, that was wiped away at that moment. At the same time I just really liked it. I just really like the opportunity to get to know these other folks in my community who I would outside of maybe this context, not interact with them as closely. 

00:12:40:16 - 00:12:53:02 

Darice 

Right, Right. Yeah. It's always interesting. It takes a special talent to deal with elementary energy level, their attention span, and all of those things. 

00:12:54:02 - 00:12:56:04 

Ferentz 

It takes a great amount of creativity. 

00:12:56:04 - 00:13:35:05 

Darice 

Yeah, Yeah. To keep them engaged all the time. So it was really fascinating to hear that about your journey. I'm wondering if you could tell me a little bit more about, you know, you mentioned that you had mentors and people who looked out for you during your college years and that you were a first gen student. So I'm curious, how did you find those mentors or did they seek you out or did you have to seek out that information or how that came about? 

00:13:35:05 - 00:14:32:17 

Ferentz 

It grew out of a variety of different things. One, a lot of children of immigrants have similar stories, especially if they're from countries where, atleast in relation to the United States, English is not the primary language. So as a young person, I remember as young as seven or eight years old, I was translating documents for my parents. I was on the phone calling the phone company, you know, various utilities. I remember, strangely, I think that maybe in third or fourth grade, talking to my parents accountant around tax season. It’s bizarre, sort of seems surreal to me now. 

00:14:33:21- 00:15:14:01 

Ferentz 

So what that did, which ironically was sort of a contradiction to a lot of what might be some of the cultural norms in a Haitian or a Caribbean community where a young person, a child, is expected to stay out of adult business. Here I was, I’m in the thick of their business. It was definitely a necessity. It made me comfortable talking to adults. And so I'd have conversations with my teachers and the principals. 

00:15:15:16- 00:15:50:00 

Ferentz 

I had an afterschool job pretty early on. I think I was thirteen when I started working after school at a dry cleaners and everyone in there, all the customers that were coming in were adults. So I just got used to talking to folks and asking them questions about themselves. That's kind of, I think the journalist in me and the storyteller, I was just curious. That sort of transferred into, I think, people taking some interest in me. 

00:15:51:00- 00:16:23:18 

Ferentz 

You know, some of it was, who's this kid that's just talking to us and asking questions? Then occasianally was like, okay, maybe this is a person who has something to say and that we could look into. Growing up, the whole idea of mentorship and people looking out for me and a person like me sort of emerged in so many different ways. 

00:16:23:18- 00:17:22:10 

Ferentz 

I remember in my first year in college, I would take the bus. So Queens College, at least at the time that I was there, was entirely a commuter school. So I was still living at home, in my parents house. I would occasionally still work in the afternoons at the cleaners. One day I was working and one of the customers came into the store. He says to me, somebody told me that you were out on the block at like 6:00 in the morning and I go, yeah I was waiting for the bus. I think a lot of students here could relate to this. I was taking a French class and language classes are notoriously early in the morning. So I said, yeah, I was waiting for the bus to go to school.  

00:17:23:10- 00:18:15:01 

Ferentz 

He goes, oh, okay, that makes a lot of sense because I know that you're not one of those knuckleheads and it struck me. I was like, wait a minute here is this person who, you know, definitely knows me from the context of this cleaner's. His impulse, when he sensed or sort of got any information that I might be doing something that I shouldn't be engaged in, was to come out and check me on it. I really appreciated that. It just dawned on me how many other folks outside of my teachers and instructors who took that level of interest to making sure, even though I was never straying from the right path, that indeed was remaining true. 

00:18:16:01- 00:18:48:10 

Ferentz 

That level of accountability, the kind of each one teach one, the it takes a village. Those are things that I brought with me into so many of the classroom settings as a student. I think in many ways as myself, as an educator. So when I got to college and I found a professor that I liked, I just did what I always did, I just talked to them. 

00:18:49:10- 00:19:25:14 

Darice 

Oh, that's amazing. I love that story and this has come up in other episodes where there are some students just like you who just have that knack for, hey, just start a conversation and get to know people and ask questions and don't have a problem doing that. Then there are other folks who, and I've mentioned this in earlier episodes, where they're more on the introverted side and maybe don't know who to reach out to, or maybe they do and they're just shy. 

00:19:26:14- 00:19:56:08 

Darice 

So I'm curious about how did you pull all of your experience, everything you just mentioned, into mentoring students who are like that, who are maybe less extroverted, shy, introverts or nervous about asking for help or mentoring. So how do you pull that experience into what you do now as your role in the college? 

00:19:57:08- 00:20:23:14 

Ferentz 

It's difficult. It's a constant evolution. Most people who know me, actually pretty much everyone who knows me, tends to say that I'm quiet or fairly reserved. Then after a while, when they really get to know me, they're like, oh, he's a straight fool. So there's a bit of that to it.  

00:20:24:14 - 00:21:36:09 

Ferentz 

What I realized from having also the habit of just sitting back and listening is that the person who's talking is not necessarily the one who is the smartest in the room or the one who deserves to be the leader or driving the conversation. I say this to students quite often if a student hasn't been participating in class and they're saying that they're lost or that the questions that are being asked are not things that they're following. I try to get them to realize, well as a professor, if you're not asking the question, it's hard for us to answer. If you're not asking questions, we're taking the class or the conversation in a number of different places based on the feedback.  

00:21:37:09 - 00:22:25:06 

Ferentz 

So much of teaching and working with young people is a call and response. On a one-to-one level, it takes a just level of patience and being able to sit in silence or sit in the discomfort of silence at times to allow people the space to start talking and to come out. When we're talking about group settings it's finding and creating opportunities to allow those who don't talk to most, students who are maybe very reserved or introverted or anyone, even if it's not students we're talking within the context of colleagues too, an opportunity to share their voices. 

00:22:26:06- 00:22:50:15 

Ferentz 

There are times where I've been very much blessed, where I didn't say anything during a class or a meeting and when I finally spoke, I felt really affirmed. So I always remember those experiences. So I try to do the same for others. 

00:22:51:15- 00:23:37:18 

Ferentz 

Then over time as an educator, you just begin to realize, how do I meet students? How do I meet them where they are? How do I create a classroom space where it's not just a person with the highest verbal acuity who is going to be driving or leading? What are other ways or other models of leadership or being at the forefront that we can amplify, we can put forward as models and invite other folks to emulate? 

00:23:38:18 -  00:24:16:02 

Darice 

I love that because even from my own personal experience stepping outside of my comfort zone, you know, doing the podcast as we were talking about on the way over here. I’ll primarily do the tech stuff, you know, behind the scenes. Doing this is a step outside of a comfort zone for me, because I've never done it before. I really didn't have an interest in doing a podcast. 

00:24:17:03- 00:24:39:01 

Ferentz 

Or maybe you did it in a different medium. I think maybe a lot of the work that you do in terms of communications, kind of web design and imaging is really bringing out stories or bringing out narratives, but just in a different way. So you've been talking to people at the university, but just in a different context. 

00:24:40:02- 00:25:15:15 

Darice 

In a different context. Yeah, that's very true. I wanted to touch on a couple of things that you had mentioned a few minutes ago, just kind of taking a step back in terms of your childhood and being an interpreter basically for your family and for your parents. That actually came up too in a previous episode with Daisy Abreu. It was almost like you became an adult in a sense at age, you said four? 

00:25:15:16- 00:25:16:17 

Ferentz 

Eight or nine. 

00:25:17:17- 00:25:58:25 

Darice 

Eight or nine. Yeah. Like in terms of interpreting important information for others. So I imagine that in doing so it was almost like not only are you interpreting language wise, but you're interpreting in a way that your parents felt comfortable or accepted and how that kind of carried over into the approach that you mentioned in terms of how you work with students. I wonder if you could talk a little bit more since we're talking about your current role. 

00:25:59:25- 00:26:29:12 

Ferentz 

Oh, one more thing that I grew to learn in hindsight about that experience is that it made me good at being an advocate for myself, but only to a certain level because there are things that I just didn't know about in the world that I couldn't or I didn't know to aspire to.  

00:26:30:12 - 00:27:23:13 

Ferentz 

So yes, when it came time to, you know, we talked about our kids who are both in the New Haven public school system. My kids are now applying for schools and I'm filling out all the applications. When I was their age, I was the one filling them out. So there are things that I did not know to look for. New York City has specialized high schools, for example. So, I knew that they existed but I didn't know how to prepare for the test, how to take a test, or when to take a test. Those are things that just I was like, well I know someone that went to Stuyvesant. 

00:27:24:13 -  00:27:59:14 

Ferentz 

That I wouldn't say it placed a cap or a ceiling or at least one that couldn't be moved. But it did put some parameters that I didn't know at the time because there are things that as confident that I was at times as a student, I'm still not an adult.  

00:28:00:14 - 00:28:44:14 

Ferentz 

So there was never the case or the feeling that my parents were coming back in as the calvary. If there was something that I was really questioning about you know, whether it was my schooling or even when I was trying to advocate for them at times people were like, oh, yeah, we're talking to this kid and he's not an accountant, he's not a lawyer, so whatever he watched on TV to learn about some legal jargon that's as much as we're going to get out of him. 

00:28:45:14 - 00:29:54:22 

Darice 

Since you mentioned that, a topic that has come up before in previous episodes is that some students, you know, we figured it out as we went along because we didn't have the resources or understanding to ask questions, but also to know who to ask questions to. I know I touched on being reserved or introverted, but, in my own experience, there are certain things that I could figure out on my own, but there are other things that I thought I was figuring out on my own but I really had no idea and didn't have a mentor available to help guide me along the way. So there were opportunities that I missed because I didn't even realize they were available or what I had to do to apply for these things. So now, like you said, I approach it differently with my own children. 

00:29:55:22- 00:30:45:05 

Darice 

I'm curious, since you mentioned that, how do you guide students now here at Yale College? And I know there are all sorts of resources, and I mean you know, there’s a wealth of resources available and the key is communicating that to students. Also I've always been curious, I always hear that students don't like emails, they don't want to read emails. So how have you managed to communicate these things to students and to let them know what they do have available to them as Yale College students and what the resources are here? 

00:30:46:05 - 00:30:41:02 

Ferentz 

It's so nuanced because part of your point is that there are just so many resources on campus. The sheer volume of resources can sometimes be overwhelming to anyone on this campus, students, staff. If you didn't grow up in a culture or space where things felt abundant it's hard to be able to navigate or really, really appreciate. I don't mean appreciate in like or dislike, but appreciate in terms of being able to really absorb and build upon. Right?  

00:30:42:02 - 00:32:25:18 

Ferentz 

I always take that into consideration that there are students who know these things are out there and who maybe sometimes just for good reasons, don't want to engage them. There are those who don't know, and that's kind of a simpler thing. It's a little bit of, hey, did you know you can go here? Did you know that you can go to the Poorvu Center and find a writing partner or learn more about writing tutoring, or find a tutor for one of your quantitative classes or science classes?  

00:32:25:18 - 00:32:58:15 

Ferentz 

Or you're dealing with a break up? Okay, you know, we have this great program called Yale College Community Cares, YC3. They’re these wellness specialists who can talk you through this thing that feels life shattering in the moment but which you really can persevere and you have all the skills. It is just a matter of being able to talk to someone.  

00:32:59:15 - 00:33:20:11 

Ferentz 

You know, you're really interested in African-American studies? Well we have a whole department of scholars, and whether you're interested in it from a musical perspective, art, history, literature, political science, they're all these folks you can go talk to. So there's that, right? 

00:33:21:11 - 00:34:10:06 

Ferentz 

There's also the fact often we find ourselves when overwhelmed, just frozen. Where do I go? What do I do? Is this just a point where I need the space and the time to not act? I've learned over time to be patient with students in that regard too. Early on in my career, it was a lot of, you got to do this now, you gotta do this now, you're only here for four years. Do it while you're young.  

00:34:11:06 - 00:34:36:20 

Ferentz 

Now I've come to be more of, okay, I recognize that you're going to do this at your own time. How can I support you in that? How can we allow you to pace yourself in a way that's comfortable to you but doesn't undermine your long term objectives?  

00:34:38:20 - 00:35:03:10 

Ferentz 

While I'm by no means 100% accurate on this, what about my perspective just in terms of experience, being older, can I offer that might be able to inform some of the ramifications of these decisions?  

00:35:04:10 - 00:35:51:10 

Realizing that ultimately, there's so many components of our backgrounds that are going to be very different in terms of how you experience these things. If I'm wrong, that's a blessing too, that you're not going to be faced by this obstacle. In the event that I'm right or my experience or what I've learned from others is accurate, I'm sharing with you some insight that I wish maybe in some cases someone had shared with me or someone else in your perspective probably wishes someone had shared with them. 

00:35:52:10 - 00:36:40:04 

Darice 

Yeah, absolutely. That's great. You know, and as you're speaking, it literally reminded me, I told you my son’s 20, so we've had these conversations where I had a moment right around his senior year going into college, and I had to realize that he's not my clone. This realization came over me that he's not my clone. He's not my chance to do everything I didn't do in college and realizing that this is his journey, and I'm here to facilitate that, but not try to craft his journey around all of the things I didn't get to do.  

00:36:41:04 - 00:37:07:06 

Darice 

Yeah, it was funny when I came to this realization because I actually felt a little guilty because imagining the pressure that he probably felt with all of these things. I was so on it about, you have to do this and do that while you're young and you have time, you have all the time in the world and it's so true. 

00:37:08:06 - 00:37:35:05 

Darice 

It's like everyone's different, right? Realizing that everyone's journey is different. Even with my own child, his journey is just different from mine and giving him the space to figure things out. Figure out what he wants to do in all of those things without the pressure. 

00:37:36:05 - 00:38:42:07 

Ferentz 

I was confronted with that fairly early on and continue to be confronted with it through various stages of parenting. My brother is six years younger than me, so when he was applying to college, by that time I was a second year graduate student or something like that. I remember this was back in the day when the college guide was that very big Princeton, you know, the Princeton Guide and USA Today list of colleges. So I did the thing that any other big brother who was now attending an Ivy League school would do, I got the Princeton Guide and I got The U.S. News and World Report, that's all the colleges. I got those for him. 

00:38:43:07 - 00:39:49:20 

Ferentz 

I was very kind of hawkish over his application essay. Something no one really did for me, at least no one in the house. I was hawkish and how he had to not just apply to the CUNY and SUNY schools. SUNY is the State University in New York, it's the other four year college system. I said,  there are these schools out there, there are these small liberal arts colleges. There's this place called Amherst. I remember I was like, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, and you got to look into these things. Your experiences don't have to be like mine. I've been out in the world. 

00:39:50:20 - 00:40:29:08 

Ferentz 

He said, I don’t want to.I said, what do you mean you don't want to? He said, I don't want to. What really got me, he said, look, you went to Queens College. You seem to be doing a pretty good job, you seem to be doing pretty well. Why do I need to sort of create this stress? I don't need to take on debt and I was like, all right. 

00:40:30:08 - 00:40:45:20 

Ferentz 

There's that realization that for me it was like, oh my gosh, my younger brother could have a whole different experience, all these things, right? He did end up having a very different experience because he's a different person.  

00:40:45:20- 00:40:46:21 

Darice 

Right. 

00:40:46:21- 00:40:55:05 

Ferentz 

The way that he was informed by my decisions was not necessarily the way that I was trying to project them out. 

00:40:55:10 - 00:40:56:10 

Ferentz 

Right. 

00:40:56:10 - 00:41:18:19 

Ferentz 

As you mentioned, just time and again, that lesson comes back up as a parent, as a friend,and as an educator. Yeah, you're right. 

00:41:19:19 - 00:42:16:06 

Darice 

Yeah, yeah. It's a hard realization, right? At least for me, when I think back, whether they were mistakes or missteps and things that I wish I knew along the way or because I'm always imagining where would I be if I had done just this one thing, but it was a hard realization for me that this is not my journey. This is someone else's journey. Giving him space so that they know that I can help facilitate whatever they want their journey to be, not what I want the journey to be. So it was a tough, you know, that moment, it was like an aha moment and realizing that, yeah, this is his life. It's not mine. 

00:42:17:06 - 00:42:41:05 

Ferentz 

Yeah. That's real and it's one of those things where what is hard for your child or loved one to realize is, I just really want the best for you. 

00:42:42:05 - 00:42:43:12 

Darice 

You just want the best, right? Exactly. 

00:42:44:12 - 00:42:59:09 

Ferentz 

What's hard for us or you as a person giving the advice or trying to shield or protect is there's going to be a time where you just don't know what's best. 

00:44:00:09 - 00:43:42:11 

Darice 

Right? That's true, too. That's very true. That's what it boils down to. Whether it's your children or working with the students, it's like you just want the best for them and hope to help them achieve whatever that is. It’s just really inspiring. I'm curious, when you think back on what I don't even know how many thousands of students that you've probably worked with over the years, is there like a specific success story that immediately comes to mind when you think of all the students that you've helped along the way? 

00:43:54:11 - 00:44:31:05 

Ferentz 

What I was not fully prepared for, and which I am really relishing now, is watching my students become. I taught high school for several years and first year college classes, so watching my students just become full on adults and having these lives. 

 00:44:32:05 - 00:44:51:02 

Ferentz 

The other day I was on Instagram and I saw one of my students with his two daughters. He had posted a t a series of pictures of them, you know him rolling around with them and playing. He was a great person when he was in college, but I was just, you know. 

00:44:51:02 - 00:44:52:04 

Darice 

Yeah, yeah. 

00:44:53:04 - 00:45:07:22 

Ferentz 

Yeah, yeah. His beard had some gray in it. I go, oh, my gosh. This is just beautiful. This is just a beautiful thing to behold. 

00:45:08:22 - 00:45:35:22 

Ferentz 

I had students get prominent awards and one of my former students won a Pulitzer a couple of years ago, and I was like, oh my gosh. I was like that’s crazy. You know, those essays you wrote for my class, I'm sure they helped. 

00:45:35:22 - 00:46:37:22 

Ferentz 

It's just watching them step into their own truth. Because of social media, you know, some of them will keep up with me. So I've been to weddings, seen weddings, seeing them bounce back from loss and grief, seeing them take risks that I would not have foreseen. It just makes me so inspired.  Then there are times when the risk that they are taking, I'm like, wow, this is great. I'm like, talking about this sort of the things that you wish you'd done. This is the kind of stuff that I wish that I had made an occasional decision to do. I wish I had tried that. 

00:46:37:22 - 00:47:07:11 

Ferentz 

So those are kind of success stories. Just watching them grow into their own and occasionally, there are one or two who will call me and share an anecdote, something that I probably had not even noted at the time. So those are always amazing too. 

00:47:08:11 - 00:47:52:21 

Darice 

Yeah, that’s awesome. I can only imagine that it could be something small that you've done along the way and you don't even realize whatever impact you had on the student at the time and it resonated with them for some reason over the years and this has come up in other episodes too, where it's just that interaction that you had with the student can just have this lifelong impact, which is amazing. Then for them to remember, like just to reach out to you years later shows that, you know, whatever time that you spent with them was meaningful. 

00:47:53:21- 00:48:11:19 

Darice 

That's an amazing feeling to think, oh, you know, the work I do. I'm sure that there are days where it's like, yeah, you're just doing the work, but you forget that this has a really long term effect and that's an amazing feeling. 

00:48:12:19 - 00:48:24:15 

Ferentz 

Yes, absolutely. There are times I'll just stumble upon a story about a student. I’m like, oh, wow, that is just amazing. 

00:48:24:15 - 00:48:57:13 

Darice 

Yeah. So that's great. I wanted to talk a little bit more about your authoring. The book you authored, Songs in The Key of My Life, which I love that title and of course I immediately think of Stevie Wonder. So I'm curious if you could tell us about that book and then also how your writing sort of intersects with your work here in the college. 

00:48:57:13 - 00:50:03:16 

Ferentz 

Songs in The Key of My Life is inspired by the Stevie Wonder album Songs in the Key of Life, and it's a series of vignettes about memorable songs connected to memorable moments in life. The genesis, like so many pieces of art, was a breakup and where afterwards I spent a lot of time listening to Stevie Wonder and listening to songs and Key of Life in particular. I started thinking about other songs and sort of in the same way that album brought back so many memories of that relationship, I needed to think of other songs so I could pull myself out of the aftermath. 

00:50:04:16 - 00:50:33:04 

Ferentz 

I just kind of like an idea jotted down some notes. One day I happened to be at a holiday party as it were, and met a book editor, Clarence Haynes. Clarence is like, you working on anything? And I was like, I just got this idea you know, this book Songs in the Key of My Life, you know, you ever see Stevie Wonder? And he was like I love Stevie Wonder.  

00:50:34:04 - 00:51:08:22 

Ferentz 

He says, I want to see it, as soon as you write something down, I don't care if it's a table of contents, just an outline. Sure enough, I did. We were able to work on the project. It was great. It was an opportunity to really be self-reflective. It was cathartic in a number of different ways.  

00:51:09:15 - 00:51:38:22 

Ferentz 

What I didn't realize at the time going into it was how my mother became a main character in the book just because her lively personality related to music. So one of the anecdotes, one of the vignettes, is about that Billie Ocean song, Caribbean Queen. I talked about how my mother used to say Billie Ocean was her husband. So was Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye.  

00:51:38:22 - 00:52:08:06 

Ferentz 

There's always this image that sort of sticks out in my mind of her with her very thick haitian accent. Just going, Caribbean queen- boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You know, for a while I thought that was the song. Caribbean queen boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.  

00:52:09:06 - 00:52:52:06 

Ferentz 

You know, stories like that I was like, okay, there's this joy, you know. It sounds cliche, but there's really this sort of joy and a full range of emotions that music pulls out of us. So that was a great opportunity. I had done both in high school and college, some not extensive music writing, a couple of album reviews and profiles of artists. So I was able to tap into that.  

00:52:53:06 - 00:53:26:06 

Ferentz 

I've written a fair number of personal essays and so what I often felt that if I wasn’t a sportswriter, my other genre probably would have been memoir or personal essays. So some of this just came natural, it was like, okay, I like music. I could tease out stories about my everyday life and it really worked out well. 

00:53:27:06 - 00:54:14:17 

Darice 

That's amazing. I agree. Like music, you know, it may sound cliche, but I think it's the one thing that connects everyone is that If I were to write a memoir, it would be guided by like, this is the song, this is the song that came out during that time. I remember that summer, you know, or whatever happened. That's been like the timeline. It connects all of us, it just resonates that emotion just everything like I can think of smells? The breeze, or whatever the weather may have been that day, things like that. 

00:54:15:17 - 00:54:55:23 

Ferentz 

When I was doing the book events for the book, there was my reading and then whether it was during the book signing portion or just a talk back. I was just more captivated by the stories that people would just tell and share about songs that meant a lot to them. So there are times where, like, I'd be sort of in the front and go, no, please, just say more, this just sounds amazing. 

00:54:55:23 - 00:55:07:12 

Darice 

Yeah, that's so cool. I didn't know that about you. Are there other artists that resonate for you or your favorite artists? 

00:55:07:12 - 00:56:17:12 

Ferentz 

There are a couple artists that take me to different places. There are a couple of Haitian kompa musicians from the big bands from the seventies, Tabou Cumbo or Tropicana or even Kassav. Like, whenever I hear those songs, whenever I hear them, those artists, I'm transported back to my parents living room on a Saturday or Sunday morning, and my dad turned on his stereo. Started putting on some records and that will just play, you know, for 4 to 5 hours straight. I remember on Sunday mornings cleaning the house and those records would be playing in the background. 

00:56:18:12 - 00:56:53:12 

Ferentz 

Bob Marley is another person, I think the first sort of crossover artist that my parents would play in the house. So there was Marvin Gaye's What's Going On Out in the House, Michael Jackson Thriller and so those musicians make me think of home. 

00:56:54:12 - 00:56:56:14 

Darice 

Yeah, Yeah. 

00:56:57:10 - 00:57:37:14 

Ferentz 

There’s a slew of artists. A Tribe Called Quest, Lauryn Hill, The Fugees, Black Sheep, that remind me of being in college. A lot of half of high school, being young or young in that way and feeling as if everything was possible. There are all these doors yet to be open. 

00:57:37:14 - 00:58:27:21 

Ferentz 

Then there are other artists. Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone, in particular, Society of Laura, who sort of remind me of being at peace. The feeling of just stepping back and, you know, looking into the world. 

00:58:27:21 - 00:59:22:09 

Darice 

Yeah that's amazing. All stuff that I love. I love all the artists that you mentioned. I could even share for myself or for folks who don't know me. Most people know that I'm a huge Prince fan. I think probably the biggest reason that I really just gravitated towards his music was just being yourself. To me he had the audacity to do what he wanted to do and be what he wanted to be, and present himself the way he wanted. You know, he did it. A lot of his music was about that. 

00:59:22:09 - 00:59:25:03 

Ferentz 

Self expression and being yourself. 

00:59:26:03 - 00:59:51:05 

Darice 

Yes, self expression. I always admire that, you know, I was like, I wish I could be that. Yeah same thing, every song is probably a timeline of my life and that resonates for me because, again, I think music is at least one common thread that everyone experiences in a certain way. 

00:59:52:05 - 01:00:21:14 

Darice 

It's actually come up in some of our previous episodes. You mentioned writing, sharing your story , and it's interesting to see. We have some poets here, we have musicians in Yale College, and it’s that common thread that just kind of connects everyone. That's really interesting. 

01:00:22:14 - 01:00:52:09 

Darice 

I'm wondering, kind of jumping back and I realize we passed our hour, but I do have a few more questions for you. I wanted to hear more about,  I know you wear different hats here at Yale College, but also outside of Yale College. So I'm curious if all of these projects that you're involved with and the different hats that you wear here at the college, how they influence each other. 

01:00:53:11 - 01:01:32:00 

Ferentz 

Because of all the hats I wear at college, a lot of this stuff that I used to be involved in more broadly, you know, this is maybe a lesson for some of our students. I've learned to say no. I've learned to pull back from a lot of things over time. Some of the professional experiences that I've had outside of the academia that I've really enjoyed or been really influential in.  

01:01:33:11 - 01:02:28:00 

Ferentz 

There's a point where I gave a lot of thought to working in politics or in government and communications. I’ve written some op-eds for elected officials and I really thought that there was an opportunity to kind of do that. I don't think, as a long term career but definitely I was exploring stepping away from academia for a period just so that I could try it, just so I could see a different set of experiences. To the degree that I was able to do that, it was really fascinating. 

01:02:28:01- 01:03:16:17 

Ferentz 

I got a chance to see a little bit more closely inside of how sort of the government works, both on the local level and on the more broader federal level. It was an opportunity to meet people who I would not have gotten to since at that time most of the work that I was doing was as a literature professor. So as a professor, it wasn't like every day that I'd be spending a considerable amount of time with urban planners and policy folks for example. So that was really good. 

01:03:17:18 - 01:03:55:16 

Ferentz 

The other thing which I think continues to be very influential was the work that I did with Nostrand Park. Like so many people in the early 2000s, I started a blog and I finished graduate school, was working in New York, living in Brooklyn. I was like, oh, everybody else has a blog, I need a blog. I started this blog called Nostrand Park, which just started out with some musings about what I was seeing happening around. 

01:03:56:16 - 01:04:14:01 

Ferentz 

Then because I was living in Prospect Heights and Crown Heights in Brooklyn and over time engaging with other bloggers and just sort of looking at neighbors, people just started to say, hey, you know, you can build this thing out a little bit more. What are you trying to do?  

01:04:15:16 - 01:05:23:01 

Ferentz 

What me and a good friend of mine Laurel Brown, who came on board as a partner in the project and ended up doing some really great work with it after I left, got finally settled on is the Notion Avenue corridor. At least in the part that we lived in Crown Heights, it was filled with small businesses, many of whom were Caribbean owned. We were very conscious of the prospect of incoming gentrification, particularly in terms of how it could sort of change the business landscape. So we sought to try to tell the story of these Caribbean shop owners and kind of this idea, that Nostrand Avenue is this Caribbean corridor. 

01:05:24:01 - 01:06:06:01 

Ferentz 

We were able to get some funding from small business services. We were able to join a nonprofit incubator to do some work with the businesses, helping promote Laurel, this great district marketing campaign that basically were very much similar. Now that we think of pop ups or the night market on chapel or I guess there's also one on orange so she did one of those and took an abandoned space. So it was just really amazing work. 

01:06:07:02 - 01:06:32:07 

Ferentz 

That project allowed me to see how quickly people can galvanize. There are people who weren't behind the idea, there were plenty of naysayers, too, but plenty of people who just backed it and were really supportive and how quickly just that level of support could inspire us and galvanize us.  

01:06:33:07 - 01:07:30:19 

Ferentz 

Design thinking was a big sort of topic or sort of language at the time, but it really helped me think as as a designer. What do our public spaces look like? How do we want to think about communities? So placemaking kind of design thinking those, those things which again, things I would not have been thinking of as I'm reading Toni Morrison  or Gloria Naylor novel really came to life, and I really appreciate the opportunity to sit with those kinds of ideas. Also engage in something that was kind of different from my day to day. 

01:07:31:12 - 01:07:43:06 

Darice 

That's really fascinating. I wish we had more time because I'd love to hear more, but I'll ask some of my final questions for you. 

01:07:45:07 - 01:08:27:06 

Darice 

Ferentz, tying this back to all of your experiences and back to your work here with students, but also, with staff, our colleagues. Just wondering if you sort of have a vision of what you like? First, what are some of the key challenges that you've seen over the past maybe year or so for students and staff that interact with students? Then, you know, do you have some ideas in terms of how we can address some of those challenges more effectively in the coming years? 

01:08:28:06 - 01:08:56:22 

Ferentz 

That goes back to what I often talk about those three pillars. A sense of self, a sense of place and a sense of responsibility. That changes over time in terms of the population on a campus, both the students, the staff, the faculty. For me, those are always the grounding questions.  

01:08:56:15 - 01:09:42:22 

Ferentz 

It is hard being a person, being a college student, being a parent, being a caretaker for your parents. Now I'm sort of on pins and needles because my father is in his seventies. So who am I at any given moment is changing, and I'm afraid of that at my big age. So I could understand and remember how I was afraid and anxious about that even though I embraced so many of the possibilities when I was 18 to 22.  

01:09:43:06 - 01:10:06:24 

Ferentz 

Where am I? I'm slowly settling into being in New Haven. Like I said, I lived here for six years as a graduate student. Now I'm in my sixth year here. My daughter is constantly asking me, are we Connecticans? Connetiticans? Like I don't know what the term is. 

01:10:07:12 - 01:10:09:18 

Darice 

It never rolls off the tongue when you say it. 

01:10:9:16 - 01:10:45:22 

Ferentz 

Yeah. So, where am I? Is that settling into and I understand sort of why that makes me uneasy at times, why that makes some students uneasy, whether they're homesick, whether they're maybe not homesick, they're just excited about the possibility of like, I'm going to leave home, I'm not going to go back to my hometown, like this is great. Then the sense of responsibility, like what are we called to do?  

01:10:46:06 - 01:11:27:10 

Ferentz 

It's something that you grapple with as an 18 year old. It's something that you grapple with as a 28 year old, a 48 year old, and a 50 year old. What am I called to do? Like, right now I feel like I'm called to be the best dad that I can be. I tell my students the same dad jokes that I tell my daughters. The students cringe just as much as my daughters do. They're like, oh my gosh, he's at it again. Like at the core, that's what I feel like I'm really called to do at the moment.  

01:11:26:10 - 01:11:58:10 

Ferentz 

So in effect, that extends into how I extend myself to colleagues and students. Not in a sense of like wanting to be helpful or parent, but more so, wanting to create an environment where people can feel safe and heard even if that's not what they always are accustomed to. 

01:11:59:10 - 01:12:19:05 

Darice 

I think that’s an awesome note to leave on. Just our sense of responsibility and also creating a safe space for folks to be who they are. For them to express themselves and yeah I think that's an excellent point to leave on. 

01:12:19:05 - 01:12:21:06 

Ferentz 

Thank you. 

01:12:21:05 - 01:12:29:10 

Darice 

Thank you Ferentz. I'm so glad. I'm just really happy to have you today. I can't believe it's taken me this long to get to know you. 

01:12:29:10 - 01:12:54:15 

Ferentz 

Hey, I've enjoyed every project we've been able to collaborate on. As I said during the conversation, I think you speak to so many people through the things that you're been able to bring out through the various tech and web projects. I think you're definitely one of the affirming voices in your college. 

01:12:55:15 - 01:13:45:22 

Darice 

I appreciate that. Thank you so much. So Ferentz, again, we'll wrap up now. I wish I had 2 hours with you because it is really fascinating just to hear about your experiences over the years and again. I really appreciate everything you shared with us today and I appreciate your time today. It's been a really enriching conversation. I said this to Daisy Abreu, my first guest on the podcast. Literally, I could hear music in my head as we were talking about artists, but just hearing about your experiences, I just wish we had more time to talk about stuff. Maybe there's a part two somewhere in there, if you'll ever do it again. 

01:13:46:01 - 01:14:13:19 

Darice 

Ferentz, I'm sure that the students, they show their appreciation for, just everything that you've done over the years and the contributions you've made to our student life here has been amazing. So just thank you so much for all of the insights that you shared today and some of the stories that you had to share with us. 

01:14:14:03 - 01:14:21:17 

Darice 

I don't know if you have just any final things that you'd like to say or share with our listeners. 

01:14:21:17 - 01:14:40:11 

Ferentz 

Thank you. I've enjoyed our conversation. I've enjoyed listening to the conversations with previous guests, and I'm looking forward to subsequent seasons of the podcast. 

01:14:41:02 - 01:15:13:20 

Darice 

Awesome. Thank you so much Ferentz, so we'll wrap up the episode today. I always plug with you can find us on Spotify, SoundCloud and Apple Podcasts. We're also on Instagram, so look for us, Yale College Voices. Please like, share, follow, share with your friends, share with our staff. Again just thank you for this conversation today and it's been wonderful. So we'll sign off from here.