Kenjus Watson is one of SOE's new faces and voices after joining its faculty as an assistant professor in the fall of 2023.

Earning a doctoral degree in education with a specialization in race and ethnic studies from UCLA and a Master of Education in higher education from the Pennsylvania State University, Watson has created an early career path replete with acclaimed publications, awards and honors, research experience and presentations, curriculum development, and professional and community service.

With academic experience and expertise steeped in urban education from diverse perspectives, including antiracist pedagogy; policies affecting teachers; and educational issues impacting marginalized communities of students, his background rendered him an ideal fit for SOE.

"Dr. Watson’s work not only critiques the ways our intersecting systems – education, health, criminal justice, media and entertainment, and the built environment – have historically and continually oppressed and marginalized people, especially people of color, it also reimagines these institutions for a more just and humane future," said SOE Assistant Professor Dr. Robert Shand, expressing what makes Watson is a valued colleague. "In his research, teaching, and interactions with peers and students, he pushes all of us at SOE and throughout the broader AU community to think bigger about what is possible to build a better world."

Currently, Watson's insights fortify both SOE's EdD program - where he teaches a Building Teams and Growth Culture Practicum course and serves on dissertation committees - and the AU community, where he is a frequent participatory invitee to the university's more scholastic events.  

How well are you acclimating to SOE and DC after having launched your academic career at institutions on the West Coast?

I will start by offering the obvious: it’s cold (laughter). There’s a lot more precipitation out here! Overall, I’ve appreciated this new season in my life and being in community with family and loved ones out this way. The academic year has been both edifying and challenging. I’ve been blessed to connect with and learn from folks in the area who are engaged in a protracted struggle to dismantle oppressive systems and enliven more self-determined futures for marginalized people, many of whom are incredible education and policy practitioners and leaders in SOE's EdD program and also my educator-colleagues both at SOE and AU. 

However, my brief time in our community has also coincided with legal attacks on critical education, escalating wars, widening global economic inequality, food insecurity, and youth mental health crises. These challenging realities are deeply impacting the students I work with, the research I’m engaged in, and the communities I try to be in right relation with.

You have been very active at AU since you began your tenureship and sought out to participate in numerous events in a short period of time. What is your assessment of the AU Community's interest in your work, and is there a common theme with the information you have imparted to its members?

I think my engagement with the AU community reflects a mutual recognition of the urgency and importance of addressing the ways in which the multipronged oppressive dynamics inherent in institutions - such as schooling - compromise the well-being of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color. My research concerns cellular structures known as telomeres, which is Greek for "end parts." They are a powerful indicator of how repeated experiences with stress can make us more vulnerable to disease and even cause us to age faster. I’ve used telomeres to better understand the harmful physiological impact on BIPOC students when they experience stressful racist encounters in K-12 and higher education spaces. The common themes in my discussions on campus have revolved around a critical examination of the impact of everyday anti-blackness and racial microaggressions on student health and learning, as well as the importance of what some of us educators may call “culturally relevant pedagogies" and healing methods for young people. In other words, I’ve learned through my research that in re-acquainting Black, Indigenous and other students of color with their own decolonized languages, practices, and world-views, myself and other educators can interrupt the stress students experience and make a positive impact on their overall health and wellness.

This week, you facilitated an event for SOE’s Equity, Justice, and Community (EJC) Committee Podcast Listening Group, highlighting a podcast which you had co-hosted with your colleagues Dr. Tiffani Marie and Wellness Practitioner Jewell Bachelor, “Drawing from the Well.” The podcast discussed the topics of Community Responsive Education and school abolition. Could you explain what these phrases mean and provide some insight into what you discussed at the event?

Community Responsive Education, or CRE, is a collective of educators, community leaders and wellness practitioners who have been working with various groups across education to build humanizing and nurturing cultures. The event focused on this and a dynamic "Drawing from the Well" conversation we held with University of Illinois, Chicago, Professor David Stovall, who is one of the first contemporary education scholars to plainly pose the question, “Are we ready for school abolition?” School abolition takes its cues from previous abolition movements, such as prison abolition, police abolition, military abolition, the abolition of borders, and, of course, the abolition of chattel slavery. In fact, it could be argued that all these movements owe their genesis to the unfinished abolition of the kidnapping, torture, and enslavement of Africans. So, another way we can ask Stovall’s question is "When might we be ready to move away from the seemingly endless reform of schools, or state appendages rooted in slavery and colonization and towards something different?” These kinds of questions are exciting to me because they help expand abolition from a mere destructive process to an imaginative and collective project. We’re thankful that the Podcast Listening Group event was a place where we could do this kind of work, and I'm excited that the EJC Committee will be a holding space with our community.

You recently released a free audiobook, Apocalyptic Education, which covers the expansive research you have conducted in the areas of racial microaggressions and the anti-black imposition of schooling. Could you share details about this project and what inspired you to address this subject matter?

In 2020, I co-authored the article, “Remembering an Apocalyptic Education: Revealing Life Beneath the Waves of Black Being,” for Root Work Journal with San Jose State University professor, Tiffani Marie. In the article, we introduce readers to our concept of apocalyptic education, which emanates from an understanding of the link between the wellness of Black children and school abolition. When listeners of the audiobook hit 'play,' they will be transported to a Black church for a funeral service for schooling and "hopium," or the hope that Black achievement in schools will somehow lead to our liberation or wellness. The choice of the audiobook was motivated by the format's accessibility and its ability to engage listeners in a manner that echoes the tradition of oral storytelling. Ultimately, we envision the audiobook to be a space for listeners from all walks of life to acknowledge the decay of the current schooling system and embrace a new educational paradigm.

"Dr. Watson has brought a unique layer of perspective, life history, and genuine commitment for community to our School of Education through an authentic indigenous research lens," said Dr. William Thomas, IV, director of SOE's EdD program and EJC committee chair. "It has been a privilege working alongside him as he pushes us at SOE to refocus our attention and strategic research on the generational trauma that has been caused by various oppressive institutions, including schooling institutions that have historically marginalized, dehumanized, and disenfranchise Black communities."

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