Blog 29/ Two Months After the Hooding
Legislative Day at the Arizona State Capitol presenting on the Post-DEI Hollowing Phenomenon™ and its impact on state-level higher education policy.
Two months ago, I closed my chapter at Clark Atlanta University and completed my Doctor of Education.
There was no walk across a stage.
No hood placed over my shoulders.
Just the quiet finality of submission.
Approval.
Completion.
The work was not over.
A new chapter was unlocked.
But what I understand now — exactly sixty days later — is this:
The conferral was not the culmination.
It was the commissioning.
In the two months since that completion, I have stood on a national stage in Washington, D.C. at the AAC&U Annual Meeting. I have spoken at the Arizona State Capitol during the Governor’s African American Affairs Legislative Day. I have continued teaching, writing, presenting, building, and advocating.
Not as someone seeking visibility.
But as someone stewarding responsibility.
There is a weight that comes with scholarship when it is lived. When it is researched not from abstraction but from experience. When it is written with both data and conviction.
The doctorate did not give me a voice.
It clarified it.
It refined it.
It demanded that I use it.
This photo captures something quiet but firm — the pause before truth is spoken. The inhale before a room shifts. The moment when preparation meets purpose.
Regality is not about ego.
It is about posture.
It is about understanding that the work is bigger than the title yet honoring the title because of what it represents.
Two months ago, the degree was conferred.
Today, I am standing in rooms where policy and pedagogy intersect, carrying research that refuses to be hollowed.
And if these first sixty days are any indication, the work ahead is not about arrival.
It is about alignment.
Freshly brewed.
Still strong.
Still intentional.
Remember, bold conversations, brewed fresh - one cup at a time!
Dr. Courtney Nicole Johnson
Founder of CourtneyCoffeeChats
Bold Conversations, Brewed Fresh.
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