Jennifer Baker
About My Guest
Jennifer (Jen) Baker’s expertise is in the interdependence of communication theory and practice, where she strives to help others find true self-awareness and confidence in their communication and interaction with others. She has been teaching communication courses for over 20 years, starting at the University of Texas at Austin, moving onto the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and now at Columbia College Chicago and Northwestern University. Baker has worked at a marketing company, an engineering firm, and a variety of educational institutions. Additionally, she has founded an inner-city high school speech and debate team, assisted with photography and animation in independent films, and produced a radio show on communication.
Courses taught include Theories of Persuasion, Business Communication, Collective Decision-Making and Communication in Organizations, Strategic Communication, Using Data to Make Informed Decisions, Professional Communication Skills, My Professional Persona, Leading from Design - as well as Theories of Relational Communication, Mad-Sad-Glad: Our Emotional Culture, and Human-Animal Communication. Her most current course was about Communication during COVID. She teaches practicum courses where she is able to champion both the theory of communication and the practical nature of interaction in organizations through the experiential learning model. In her workspace, she has been awarded the SPS Distinguished Teaching Award and has been called the happiest professor that a student has ever known.
Shervin Talieh:
Terrific. Well we're joined by a new guest today and I'm really excited about this conversation. To start things off, please introduce yourself.
Jen Baker:
Hi. My name's Jen Baker. And I am currently living in Evanston, Illinois which is essentially Chicago. I have been here in the snowy area for almost 15 years. But I still consider myself a Texan because I grew up there for most of my life. And I feel like that's probably where I was most influenced. I am a teacher and a mom and I feel very much as if I am lucky enough that I am able to do that which I love which is connect and form relationships with other people through my background which is teaching. My background's in communication, was originally in relational communication, how families, friends, romantic partners get along. And has sort of evolved more into how can we play nice with others in the workplace, sometimes personally as well. And my focus, I've realized over the years as I've looked back on what it is I really enjoy of my teaching, is finding people and working with people so that they can become self aware of themselves, of their own identities.
Jen Baker:
And then they're able to use that in their communication and in their decisions that they make about relationships that they engage in. And that kind of extends out to all of the different areas that I've taught in. Currently I'm teaching both at Northwestern University and Columbia College, Chicago.
Shervin Talieh:
Terrific. Thank you for that. You made it a point to mention that you're a Texan. And having lived there and now living in the Midwest in Chicago, have you noticed any sort of cultural norms related to sexism or misogyny that are either similar or different that would be worth noting?
Jen Baker:
That's a great question. I would say that overall, I don't think it's significantly different as far as sort of the underlying intentions and viewing women as less than, I guess. If we're going to think about it that way. But I will say that in Texas, they have this funny... it's sort of hard to explain and I'm glad that you've lived there so I don't know what your interpretation will be of it. Despite the fact that there is most certainly misogyny and sexism in Texas, there's also this other kind of do your own thing attitude and as long as you do your own thing and you leave me alone, everybody's happy about it.
Jen Baker:
But I also really believe that that was also significantly my take on growing up in Texas because I was never really told by my parents... there was no indication by my parents like, "Oh, you can't do this or you shouldn't do this because you're female." All though I do see that there was some misogynistic things in growing up. But I always felt very much as if I could do and approach life however I wanted in Texas and only as I've gotten older and realized all of the little things that have happened and the popular term micro-aggressions and things like that have I realized how prevalent misogyny was both in Texas and here in the Midwest. I don't think it's really fundamentally all that different.
Shervin Talieh:
So you brought up your parents and your childhood. What is your earliest memory of misogyny?
Jen Baker:
First of all, I think it was always present. I think that just conversations and jokes and kind of right there moving right along with racism which I think is, "We're going to make these jokes and ha ha, isn't it funny?" I think those existed. But I do remember a couple of different conversations with my parents that, as a child, I thought, "Well that's a weird thing to ask me to do." I mean, here's an example. I was out at a restaurant with my dad and probably my sister and some other people. My parents at this point were split in this time in my life.
Jen Baker:
And I was just sitting in a chair, I was maybe 10, 11, 12, something like that. And I was sitting in a chair with my legs open and my dad looked at me and he's like, "Oh, no. You need to close your legs." And I remember being really angry. I was like, "Why? I'm not doing anything. I'm just sitting here being a kid." So I don't know that that's my first example but that's a very vivid example where I felt very angry that that was my instruction that I was given by my dad.
Shervin Talieh:
You said you were angry, what is it that you were angry about?
Jen Baker:
At the time, I don't know that I would have known. I think I just thought it was completely ridiculous. Like, "Why does it matter how I sit?" I wasn't even of the age yet even though I was conscious, obviously, of sexuality and things like that, it had nothing to do with what was happening in that situation. I think in hindsight it was me just being a kid and it made me angry, "Well, why can't I sit this way?" It was like an independence autonomy type thing and why does it matter? Those were kind of the questions that I had.
Shervin Talieh:
I'm sure that wasn't the only memory that you have. But as you start to grow older and then obviously you found yourself in academia and I really want to explore that too, have you felt sort of a connection, and I'm trying to be care not to lead you too much here, but was there ever an awareness of sort of what situations or what sort of environments produced more of these sort of, for lack of a better word, hostile requests or experiences for you versus others?
Jen Baker:
Wow. To me, I don't even think it was a particular event or experience or circumstance. I think it's just if there is a time in which we can subconsciously or consciously push you down because you're doing something that is not something that society says you should do, we're going to comment on it or joke on it or actually think that our responses are valid. I don't know if that's getting quite at the question.
Shervin Talieh:
It does. No, no. So you said basically when you're not conforming with what sort of, I'm using air quotes here, what "society... " Women make up over 50% of society. So maybe more specifically we're talking about what men want or something along those lines, is that correct?
Jen Baker:
Yes. That's completely correct and I think conformity is the perfect word and I'm glad you pulled that out of my strange explanation but I think that's exactly what it is. And that actually takes me right back to the example I gave you with my dad which was, "Well, why do I have to fit into any box?" And that's always been in my personality forever. So that part, I think, was part of my initial awareness of, "Oh my gosh, this is so widespread."
Shervin Talieh:
What made you want to become a teacher?
Jen Baker:
Oh. I think it was just the interactions with other people and being able to be in a position where I could help someone, I guess. But more internally. I mean, I made my way to teaching throughout my 20s. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do so I took one of the paths that I think actually most people take which is I never really figured out what I wanted to do until I was around 30. But I was working in advertising and marketing and I wasn't necessarily so fulfilled and I started tutoring a high school student and I remembered, "Oh yeah, I think I might like to go back to teaching." And that's when I went to grad school and got focused on that.
Jen Baker:
And very much more focused on the interactions in the teaching because I could have very certainly gone with the research track. But I didn't. I really wanted to be in the classroom, interacting, and having conversations and helping individuals grow. And really, I guess, societies as well, to really bring people back to their... things that were important to them and how could they live the life that they want to live?
Shervin Talieh:
So I'm going to make a generalization here and I don't know the statistics but I think what I'm about to say is accurate. As I understand it, the composition of teachers K through 12, at least in the United States, is predominately women. Whereas when you look at college and grad school, that shifts to become predominately men. First of all, is that statement somewhat accurate based on your experience?
Jen Baker:
It is somewhat accurate. I do think it's changing but I do feel like, yes, it's very accurate. And particularly I would say when I was in graduate school which was the late '90s.
Shervin Talieh:
Okay. And so tell me about the environment of academia and what sexism and misogyny is like for someone in that environment?
Jen Baker:
In academia there is such a power dynamic anyway in place. A lot of people but particularly, as you stated, it has been mostly male based for a long while. I mean, it almost is this sort of grand metaphor of white men power, in my mind, because it echoes out sort of everywhere with, "I am superior here and you're not superior there." Now things get a little tricky for me because I don't have a PhD, I have a master's. So I sort of like scraped and worked my way into teaching because I did not want to continue on with the research part of my education. I really wanted to be in the classroom.
Jen Baker:
So I'm trying to sort of parse out, there's a little bit of, "Oh, you're not as advanced as me because you didn't get this degree that I have." And a little bit of, "Oh, well this is our environment. This is where all the... " I mean, I hate to say it, but it's true, "Where all the old white men come and just can hang out until they're in their 80s or 90s and we'll just do what we want to do and we're not really so concerned about your goals and the things you want to do."
Jen Baker:
And actually, I think it's echoed a little bit in the fact that in academia, particular in research institutions, teaching is still not regarded as something that's important which goes back exactly to what you were saying with K through 12. And it's a female job to care about the students in your classrooms.
Shervin Talieh:
Let's stick with that. Another guest of mine mentioned that... towards the end of our conversation I asked a question about, "Are you hopeful about the future?" And she said, "Yes, with one caveat," and it touches on something that you just brought up, and the point was that until we are at a stage in society where boys are encouraged to be caretakers and caregivers and homemakers and all the things that I think we've done generationally for young girls, until we've done that and they fully are able to see their own identity in that environment, we're probably not going to get to this sort of equality fundamentally. What is your perception of that?
Jen Baker:
Oh my gosh, I 100% agree with that. I mean, I think it's so much about not only what we teach and how we educate the females in our life but the same thing with the men. I mean, I think it's not just a one sided situation. And I feel like fundamentally, I also think that's another really large problem is that from a position that a lot of men, if not the vast majority of men, find themselves in, they don't necessarily stop and do actually what you're doing here Shervin, which is to stop and say, "Okay. What do I need to know?" It's like, "Oh, well we're good. There's not a problem with us. So there's nothing we need to change." So part of it, I think, like I have a daughter and a son and I think about this a lot with them, what do they need to know about yourself and your personality and how you approach other people and how you care about other people? So yes, I completely agree with that statement.
Shervin Talieh:
What would you change about education whether it's the content or the experience or the way power is set up and kept, what changes would you make to help overcome misogyny? And anything is in play. I want you to think sort of there are no constraints to your imagination here. You can tell me whatever you think would be impactful.
Jen Baker:
Yeah. I was thinking it through because I feel like education is... the way it's set up as an institution, I don't believe does very much currently to help people explore who they are and how they approach and interact with others in the world. And for me, the first word that popped into my mind when you asked that question was making the experience more natural and organic. And that's a really big change for society to say, "Well, this is how we're going to teach now." And maybe that's just a reflection of how I am in my classrooms because it's very much about facilitating people's perceptions and thoughts so that they can come up with their own opinions as opposed to being given, "Here's how things work in the world." And for the most part, at least in my experience both as a student and as an instructor, many times it's not about, "What can you do to get this world figured out for yourself?" It's like, "Here's how the world is. How are you going to fit into it?"
Shervin Talieh:
Do you think the experience of children... is it something where we need to thoughtfully and sort of explicitly somehow introduce a subject or any subjects in K through 12 that could shift this mindset or is that not... in your view, this is something that just parents should take care of at home?
Jen Baker:
Oh I think it should be everywhere. I think that's what I was attempting to get at with education. I think if we can show and talk about things in a different manner, which is really deeply embedded unless you have really young teachers who've been sort of educated and experience the world in a different way, that just happens. I mean, even in a K through 12 classroom and I'm sure it extends into university classrooms as well, I mean, boys and men are called on more, still, than women. So there are things that are there that just have to very consciously be taken out of the equation by the teachers. And obviously I think parents have a role in this. But I think it extends much past the parents.
Shervin Talieh:
And as I understand it, even women or female teachers will call on male students more often, is that true?
Jen Baker:
Yes, mm-hmm (affirmative), that's what the research says which is sort of maddening. But yes.
Shervin Talieh:
Okay, let's talk... I'm sorry, go ahead-
Jen Baker:
No, and I was just going to say so there's that idea of if you're aware of that and if you want to change that, you, as an instructor or teacher, you have to stop and tell yourself, "I'm going to make sure that I call on these people, that they get to answer the question.' You have to make an effort, more of an effort than you normally would.
Shervin Talieh:
So I do want to come back to specifically your expertise around communications. And as a person in the business world who cringes at my language from sort of my prior life, I do want to talk about just sort of communications and the rituals of business communications and how... you talked about microaggressions. Some of this stuff is sort of woven into the fabric of a business interaction, right?
Jen Baker:
Yeah.
Shervin Talieh:
I want to explore that a little bit more. But before we go there, I want to sort of understand if you're talking about even women in some cases will sort of be an instrument in systemic misogyny, let's say, okay?
Jen Baker:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Shervin Talieh:
And those are my words so if I'm speaking inaccurately please correct me. But what I'd like to explore, Jen, is who's job is it to fix this? Because I've heard different answers from different people and I'd like to sort of get your perspective of let's say we are going to work on this and we're going to want to fix this. Whose job is it?
Jen Baker:
Everybody's. I mean, I think it's the individual person, I think it's the person they're talking with, it's very difficult to change somebody's point of view once it's been embedded. I mean, you can do it but it takes a lot of time and a lot of information to get them to change what it is that they think or feel really. Ideally it's happening right as somebody is engaging in the world as a child. As an adult, I feel it's the people they're with, I think it's the articles they read, it's the media that they watch. I really feel like it has to change everywhere and that's what I think sometimes makes it seem like an impossible equation, from my perspective. I want to be hopeful as well but in the last few years I've gotten actually less hopeful.
Shervin Talieh:
Can you tell me why specifically?
Jen Baker:
Well Donald Trump, number one. But no, I mean, I think when Hillary did not win the election in 2016, I was crushed. And all of the things that we're talking about now just washed over me because I was sure that, as a society, we were in a place where it would be okay to have a woman as a president. And I think part of that's my age and I think part of it is just sort of the things that we've been through but I thought, "Oh yeah, of course." And when the decision was made by the voters to take a person who was so unqualified and such a misogynist and racist and put that person in place ahead of a woman, that's what has made me much less hopeful. I have absolutely no understanding of that. It actually hurt me when that happened, like hurt my heart as a human being. I still do not understand why that would be a decision people would make.
Shervin Talieh:
Yes, yes. So in your world, your teaching world today, what are some common examples of maybe things that, at one point, were considered... like the jokes that you were referring to as a child, sort of communication norms, if you will, that are undergoing changes? Like one of the things that I think about right now is pronouns. That's a big change. That's not something that was around when I started off my career. But I'm curious if you want to talk about that or just any of the other sort of related changes that you're seeing in your profession?
Jen Baker:
The pronouns, and actually I'm glad you brought that up because I think that's the most explicit thing that's out there, I still think there's a very large struggle with it. And people still wonder why are you putting your pronouns in your signature on your email? Or whatever, or on your Zoom calls. And I think people have a really hard time understanding why that's the case and I don't even think, even as you were saying, even though it seems such a common... to me, it seems like such a commonplace thing, what I've realized and particularly from a communications standpoint is that what I feel like is now commonplace is very, very much ahead of the curve for most of the people out there in the world.
Jen Baker:
I mean, I do realize I am in academics and these things are being studied and talked about and identities are being figured out, particularly with the undergraduate students and things like that. So, for instance, my kids are 10 and eight and the school that they attend, they have conversations about these things, they talk about it. You can't assume what someone's gender is, they actually have those conversations. So I feel very much like, "Oh yeah, that's the way things should be happening." But I also have just, in the last few years and maybe it goes back to my whole 2016 mental misogynistic breakdown or whatever it is I had, is that I felt as if, "oh yeah, this is just how things are going." And that's actually not the case in the majority of the world or at least in the states right now as far as I can tell.
Shervin Talieh:
Can we talk about identity and how it relates to sexism?
Jen Baker:
Yes.
Shervin Talieh:
So do you see a connection there?
Jen Baker:
Identity as far as what? I'm not...
Shervin Talieh:
Sexual identity, sorry. Or I'm sorry, not sexual, gender identity. So one of the things, again, I'm observing is that for some men, the old world order was easy because their hatred of women could be targeted at... it was pretty binary. You're either a woman or a man, right? So it just sort of was easy for them to go about their day with doing whatever it is that they do. One of the challenges in this evolving environment is it's actually making it harder for them to direct their misogyny, right?
Jen Baker:
Yes.
Shervin Talieh:
So, again, without leading you, I'd love for you to tell me what you think and what your experiences have been.
Jen Baker:
I love the way that you put that, yeah. Where are we going to put this anger? I do think that your identity factors in there and I also feel like it's still very difficult for people to understand, and even children actually, to understand what to do with that. I can give you this example. Like I said, I have a daughter and a son. My son is very gender fluid. And he has not identified as anything other than a boy but he tends more towards female toys and... you know what I mean, stereotypical female toys and the way he dresses and the things he's interested in. And I've actually asked him, being conscious of all of these things, "What do you want to be called? He, she, they?" And he's fine with all of them. Which is fine from a parenting perspective.
Jen Baker:
But what I've noticed is that... he's now in second grade, what I've noticed is that it's difficult for the boys that are in his life at school and things like that, to understand what all of that means. Despite the conversations and sort of what I feel like is the progressiveness of the school. So now he's falling into sort of the typical, "I'm not the standard boy so now all of my friends are girls." And I've been really thinking about this because I, again maybe this is my... I can be very idealistic, because I thought, "Oh, certainly people will understand. This is just who he is and how he operates within the world."
Jen Baker:
But there are still boys that I would come from, I would argue, very progressive families and they put their kids in a very progressive school, and they still don't know what to do with him. And that's fine from how he's operating in the world. But I think it's a nice reflection of, "These kids aren't angry. They don't feel that way towards him as a person. I just don't know that they know what to do with something that doesn't fall into these standards despite the fact that they are being taught to ignore and expand what those standards are."
Shervin Talieh:
Which raises an interesting sort of paradox as we come up with more truthful ways for people to be able to identify themselves, we're, in effect, creating more labels and categories which probably won't solve the big problem which is, "What category do you belong in?" That's sort of the confusion that you're explaining as your young kids were having. Maybe, and I thought, but maybe the only way to solve that is to actually not have labels in some way.
Jen Baker:
Oh my gosh. I completely agree with you. The labels are restricting, right? The labels put you in there and that's why I even feel very awkward asking my son, "Well, what do you want to be called?" He literally does not care, right? He just wants to be who he is and I think you really nailed it, I think that's correct. And I guess there could be a whole nother aspect of a conversation or thought process of, "Oh, but then that label then helps define me for other people." So I think it gets really confusing in that for some people, particularly people... and, again, I'm not super well versed or educated in this but I would bet that for people that are transgender, being able to say, "I am a man or I am woman," is somehow very empowering for them. So the labels can get very confusing.
Shervin Talieh:
Sure. This was helpful for me. This is completely fresh ground space for me. I had never sort of heard anyone explore this. So thank you for doing that. Let's go back to the topic of communication. In your experience with working with young adults or young professionals, do you find that men, by and large, sort of communicate in one way and women in another way? Or do they all uniformly have sort of the same either bad habits or whatever it is that you need to start to sort of work on with them?
Jen Baker:
There's definitely been a lot of research done on that and some people are very... they reject the research because it puts people in a male category or in a female category but something that's always been helpful for me and it has, at least, rung true in my experiences is that a comparison between a workspace and a home space in that, at work, men tend to speak a lot more. This even goes back to the classroom example, right? Which is why they get called on more, they're demanding more of the attention. Whereas in the home space, women are the ones who are communicating and interacting more which goes right back to this whole idea of, "Here's where men should be in society and here's where women should be." But it's held up that those are the experiences despite the stereotype that women are the big talkers if we were just going to go down to who's going to talk more.
Jen Baker:
Quite frankly, men in certain circumstances, and like I said particularly in business, they are the ones who feel the confidence and feel like, of course, they should be the ones to be speaking. So that's sort of fascinating to me. And it has more to do with how you're speaking, they call it report talk versus rapport talk. And traditionally it's the report talk is coming from men and the rapport talk is coming from women but that's actually not the case, it depends on the circumstances and the situations that they're in.
Shervin Talieh:
I don't know if you heard this or not. With all the news that's going on, this one did not rise to sort of the front burner, but the chairman of the Tokyo Olympics, the president, Yoshiro Mori, just resigned because in a conversation last week he said... someone asked him, "Why aren't there more women on the committee?" And he said, "Because women talk too much."
Jen Baker:
I do remember reading that. Yes, there you go. I mean, that is not an inaccurate statement coming from a man talking about women. That's a really common thing.
Shervin Talieh:
So in that case maybe... and this is obviously a man who was purposefully not put any women in positions of power and so that can't actually be true that there are more women talking in that environment, he's maybe taking something from his home experience, to your point, I think. And projecting it or somehow conflating it. So as a man, what should I do? I am an executive at a company, give me some practical advice. What can I do to not be that guy?
Jen Baker:
Can you tell me a little bit more about your normal interactions with the people, both men and women, in your company? How do you interact, what sort of things are you speaking about?
Shervin Talieh:
So it's a combination of one on ones with people that I manage, project related meetings typically, anywhere from two to eight people, and then some sort of formal rituals like our monthly leadership meeting or our quarterly business reviews or things like that. So some are a little bit more formal, some are less formal. Did that answer the question?
Jen Baker:
It does, it does. Do you feel as if you, both for men and for women, as if you know the people that you work with, their lives and what their existence is like outside of the workplace?
Shervin Talieh:
That's a good question. I will say that I think I do. But as you were asking the question, I start to feel less certain of my answer. Keep going. Okay, why is that important? Why do I need to know that?
Jen Baker:
Because I feel, and maybe some of my leadership stuff is coming in too because that's a little bit of a center that I teach in as well at Northwestern is that I feel that if you're going to actually be able to empathize with someone's situation, it's not as if you need to know all of their deep, dark secrets or all of their personal life. But you need to have a fairly good understanding of who they are and that includes outside of the work space. And then I think once you understand that, not only can you empathize and speak more to them and just learn from them in the same way that we're having this conversation, right? But you can use that information in a way that then helps your conversation with other women, other men, other executives, right? People in other companies.
Jen Baker:
I mean, it's not a direct equation but it's more, "I understand this about this person which extends my understanding of the world and misogyny and power dynamics and all of these things. And now that I understand that, I can bring that up in conversations with others." Does that make sense, what I'm saying?
Shervin Talieh:
Oh yes. And I immediately started to take some notes about how I would incorporate that. What about this observation that I have that there's some language that we know with children, when a girl is sort of... they're labeled bossy, as an example, right?
Jen Baker:
Yes.
Shervin Talieh:
Let's talk about when they're older and the young girl who was called bossy and now she finds herself in a company where, unfortunately still, the majority of the power is in the hands of men. What's her world like and what changes need to be made there in terms of language or access to power or whatever else you can think of that would help start to change that department?
Jen Baker:
Well I think number one, which is what you're indicating, is words have a lot of power. And for us to think any differently is very problematic. And I think bossy is the perfect word because there's nothing wrong with being bossy. In fact, there's a children's television show that has this song that's like, "You're not bossy. You're the boss." Or something. They're basically saying, "Of course." But I think it's substituting that word with being assertive. Being bossy is being assertive. That's all that is. I also think there's actually a consciousness level where sometimes you actually need to have a discussion.
Jen Baker:
And, again, this isn't a thing where you're like, "Wednesday at 10:00, we're going to talk about this." But if you're in a meeting and it's with men and women, it's again, the same as in the classroom, making sure I ask the woman what her perspective is or what she thinks. Making sure that if people are going around talking about a woman using the negative connotations, calling them out on it. And that's a difficult and uncomfortable conversation and you also have to factor that in, again depending on your role in the company, what your power dynamics are and whether you feel like the other person will actually hear you and understand what you're saying. So I think some of it is just literally modeling and some of it's being really careful in the words that are being used. And in some work situations, I think it's just saying, "Well this is just an assertive person. How is she any different than George?" Or whatever.
Shervin Talieh:
So sort of the final question that I have for you and as I understand it, the fourth wave of feminism which sort of centers around the theme of empowerment and language and culture are two big themes in it. And how artists like Cardi B, as an example, are sort of reclaiming terminology that was used to denigrate women, right? And you started to talk about bossy as an example. So how does one navigate that? I say one, how do I navigate that? Because I don't believe it is my role to... actually let me just be quiet. How do you feel about the fourth wave as it pertains to this and anything that you can meaningfully sort of stitch together from what I just threw up on the table there?
Jen Baker:
Well, I mean, I think that it's relevant and it makes sense and of course that's the way things are going. I don't know that the traditional business world is probably ready to go in that direction yet. And I say that fully understanding that wouldn't it be fantastic if it could? But I think it's more just this idea of women are going to own it and they should but then you sort of indicated and stopped yourself as like you're not exactly sure what your role is there. And I don't know exactly what direction you were going. I mean, I think it's an acceptance of the things that people say to you, I think it's saying out loud in whatever circumstance that it makes sense to do so that you understand, that you appreciate.
Jen Baker:
I mean, a lot of this I really strongly believe has to do with empathy. Which is talked a lot about in the workplace and leadership and things like that. But I think it directly ties into misogyny and that I get what you're saying and I understand why it's important for you to act this way or do this thing whether you say it directly or you're just there as an understanding person when it is happening, I don't know that any of this is an instant solution either. I think it's these little things that we start putting into place.
Shervin Talieh:
Well you've given me a lot to put into practice. And I think that's what a good teacher does even with a so-so pupil like myself. So Jen, you've been really, really gracious. And as a fellow Longhorn, I'm just grateful for you and your time and what you had to share with me. And thank you so much for today.
Jen Baker:
Of course. It was a lot of fun actually despite the seriousness of the topic.
Shervin Talieh:
Great. Thank you so much.
Jen Baker:
Thanks, Shervin.