Today we’d like to introduce you to Richard Adams.
Hi Richard, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was born at Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. I grew up with my younger siblings in a military family. My mother is a retired Army veteran, so we were very fortunate to live domestically and internationally. I would say growing up both in the US and abroad developed my sense of empathy and how I see people. Looking back, I didn’t appreciate being in those spaces; I definitely plan to go back to all of them. Growing up, I flew under the radar. I wasn’t the most popular, was very shy, and was not the most confident in myself. I literally walked with my head down and eyes to the ground so that I didn’t have to make eye contact with people. I had a small group of friends wherever I went in elementary and middle school, but I still just didn’t really feel like I belonged. It was a little hard to keep in touch with them so I never had that childhood group of friends I grew up with. The life of a military kid – born in Atlanta, moving to Germany at (almost) 2 years old, moving back to Georgia at (almost) 5 years, going to elementary schools between Riverdale and Decatur, moving to North Carolina for sixth grade, moving to Japan from seventh through tenth grade, then back to Decatur for my junior and senior years of high school was difficult.
In my elementary years, I won awards for citizenship, art, and music. Those were the things that I really loved – art, visual and especially music. My mother tried to get me to sing in a choir at church when I was in middle school and I was so resistant to that because I didn’t want the attention. I attempted to join the chorus but I lacked so much confidence so I flaked out. When we moved to Japan, I joined band and played tenor saxophone – I loved it because I loved music. I played saxophone from seventh grade through my senior year of high school. When I moved back to the states my junior year I attended Southwest DeKalb High School. That was the greatest culture shock for me because the school was predominantly black. I had been around plenty of people who looked like me before, but not like that. At first I was nervous but I instantly loved it. As I transitioned into SWD, I continued playing my sax in concert band, but I also joined the renowned SWD Marching Panthers. I always wanted to be a part of that band ever since I saw them perform at the ’96 Atlanta Battle of the Bands, where SWD performed Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ as a part of their set list. Now being a part of this band, this high school, and in this community, I finally felt a sense of belonging and home. It also helped that SWD Marching Band had just wrapped filming ‘Drumline’ as Atlanta A&T Marching Band so I was able to enjoy band season and fully immerse myself in the black marching band culture. In the early 2000s, it was a huge deal. As a grew playing my saxophone from my seventh grade year, I never truly used my other musical gift – my voice. I was a part of me that I hid; the gift was there, I just never nurtured it.
After graduating from high school, I attended the “Unsinkable” Albany State University in the Good Life City of Albany, GA. I went through the first few week jitters and homesickness and even attempted to leave but my mother would not let me – I am so thankful that she did not. I stopped playing my saxophone when I got to college and joined the Anointed ASU Gospel Choir – I found my tribe. This was the first place I would say that I began to truly discover my voice, singing but personally. It was through that choir that I truly began to plant and nurture relationships more than two years. It was in college where I discovered my passion for servant leadership, mentorship, and community. I was very involved in college and had an amazing time at ASU. I also joined the greatest fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated and so many more great organizations.
I graduated from Albany State and began working for the university in Housing and Residence Life. I was never a Resident Assistant in undergrad but I was always curious about working in that office. Being honest, I did not properly plan for graduation – no internships, no job applications, no connections; I had a bachelor’s degree in psychology and no real direction. My best friend, who was a RA, told me that Housing was restructuring and needed new Grad Assistants so I applied and actually ended up getting the job. I started in this position as a means to an end, until I could find my next step, but I soon discovered this was my purpose and my passion. Being able to work in Student Affairs, specifically student development. Over the next seven and a half years, I worked at ASU, working my way up from part-time to full-time leadership/management. I had, by that time, met thousands of students, mentored hundreds, and had such a positive impact on their lives. To date, I have worked at different institutions between Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee.
I would say that what I initially envisioned for my life is nothing like what became a reality. Being this shy young man who lacked confidence and looked down, I am not him anymore. The same lessons and hardships that I learned, I use those lessons in empowering my students, so hopefully they can learn lessons sooner than I did. I love working in education – it is truly passion/purpose work. To go deeper I would also say most of my career has been working at HBCUs – it is being around my culture and my people that gave me that greatest appreciation for my history and heritage but also what helps me to commit to showing up for everyone that looks like me in these education spaces, especially the ones where there are not many that look like me.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Yes and no. Yes, because I was so blessed to grow up in a family and home where I was safe and provided for. My siblings and I grew up with everything we needed, and we got most of the things we asked for. Now, that is, we were able to get beside ourselves because our mom was military and made it a point to let us know that she was not one of our little friends. We were exposed to the world because we were able to see the world at a young age. For that, I am so thankful. The no part is a little more convoluted. I struggled a lot with my sense of confidence and identity for a long time. I’ve always been bigger and I am dark skin so I struggled with loving my own body image when I looked in the mirror. In elementary school, kids are very blunt and loud so I had heard “jiggle, jiggle just like jello” or “fat black, fat black.” In middle school, living in another country where there were not a lot of black people (Japan), they stared. I attended an American Middle/High School on a military base so there were other black students we were not a majority. The school was, in my mind, the perfect blend the stereotypical high school cafeteria you see in the movies. Different races and interest groups sitting in their clusters. Naturally, there were some tensions. It was during this time that I was first called the “N-word” out loud to my face. It wasn’t until I moved back to the states for junior and senior year of high school that I began to appreciate being in my skin. It wasn’t until I got to college, attending an HBCU, that I really began to truly love all myself inside and out.
Today – I love me some me!!!
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I work in higher education – student affairs; I’ve been doing this for 17 years. I came up through the ranks working in Residence Life and Student Conduct. I will say that doing that work through all of my training and education, I have made it my mission to develop students and staff on the importance of being kind, empathic, and trauma-informed human beings. In my day to day, my schedule runs the gamut of mediating conflict with students, strategic planning on operations, budgeting, addressing crisis, responding to disgruntled students or parents, responding to facilities concerns, providing resources for students who experience some time of hardship (i.e., death of family member, housing insecurity, financial insecurity, mental health, and the list goes on). If anything, I believe that is what I’m known for – being a kind, firm, and loving person. I have learned that the most precious commodity in this life is time. When you give someone uninterrupted time, there is so much opportunity to learn and grow – it can be something major or minor (if you let it). The work that I do has also shown me how to show of for people, not just professionally, but personally as well.
As I mentioned trauma-informed earlier, people are hurting and going through so much these days, it costs nothing to be kind and give people grace. Because also in knowing and many times not knowing specifically what people may being going through, they are deserving of being treated well.
I also deal with a lot of conflict resolution in my line of work and in my career. I will not call myself an expert but I have honed my skills and able to navigate conflict (personally) and help others do so to work toward healthy resolution. I am particularly proud of this because I grew up lacking confidence and completely averse to conflict. The idea of being in conflict or having someone upset with me use to physically make me sick. Now, I am completely the opposite. That is not to say, I go looking for conflict or start drama, but I am no longer averse to it; in fact, I welcome it (in healthy doses and ways) because that is where opportunities for learning and growth lie – being challenged. These are the lessons I consistently have when coaching my students, of course, using my own experience as guidance. We are living in a society where people tend to opt not to engage in conflict because of their anxieties and discomforts or their inability to regulate their emotions. I work hard to try to challenge their mindsets to make them uncomfortable, to learn these lessons now, while they have that cushion and margin for error, so that they don’t hit life’s pavement hard and learn it in a situation where there is no one that cares about them, or simply, life happens.
My mindset is one of one. That mindset is that I focus on my commitment to others and being the best version of myself every day. Do I have to recommit somedays? Absolutely. Are there days that seem unending? Absolutely. Even in the state of affairs in a country and our political climate, I remind myself that this is true test of leadership. It is easy when it’s comfortable and easy, but it’s when it is hard that shows the test of true leadership and character. There is a poem that I learned when I became an Alpha called “If” by Rudyard Kipling; I recite this poem every day because, as I’ve grown older, it has become more and more relevant. One particular line motivates me, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but making allowance for their doubting too…” I am relentless in the pursuit of this work, and I won’t stop trying to better and require the best from those I serve.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
Whatever you do, help at least one new person with one new thing every single day. Whenever and whereever you have an opportunity to pay it forward, do it. I say this to myself every single day, “Have a good day! And if you can’t have one, don’t you dare go mess up no one elses!”
-Tabitha Brown
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @richard.deandre
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-d-adams-m-ed-14b0421a5/
