The NIU College of Education’s first director for Equity is ready to listen.
Eric Junco, who is completing his dissertation in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, plans to inaugurate the new position with a “listening tour” that engages stakeholders who will include students, faculty, administrators and staff.
His appointment is effective July 16; he will begin work Monday, July 18, with questions that will ask if current practices are exclusionary and how can the college identify and change those.
“It’s my goal to really get to know people,” says Junco, who has also been an instructor and supervisor of NIU teacher candidates. “I want to know what their hopes, values and beliefs are in relation to social justice and equity work.”
Part of those conversations will explore how diversity, equity and inclusion inform, enable and empower their objectives for their time at NIU, he adds, and reveal how he should prioritize.
Mostly, however, Junco hopes to “just hear their stories. I want to know what their experience is with this work, and I want to talk about what they think are opportunities for growth. I really look at myself as being of a service to people. I want to be there to help support them and help them grow.”
Junco’s role is a byproduct of Dean Laurie Elish-Piper’s mission to cultivate a community of “belonging” in the College of Education, a place where all are welcome, valued, heard, seen and safe.
“We need to make sure that we are creating a climate and a culture of belonging,” Elish-Piper says, “where everyone can feel they are treated with dignity and respect, where they can be themselves, where they can pursue their goals in a space where they can do their best work because they know that they belong, and they know that they matter.”
She is eager to see what Junco accomplishes.
“Eric is the right choice as our first director for Equity because he not only brings the passion and the expertise to this work, but he has worked in all the different contexts, from public schools to community college to higher education,” the dean says.
“He really understands the issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. He understands belonging. He understands the challenges and opportunities of those different spaces,” she adds. “Equity is his life’s work.”
Diversity, Junco says, is the intentional representation of different minority and underrepresented populations. Equity is fair and equitable treatment, access and opportunity for all. Inclusion is the effort of creating environments that respect and value all people.
“All of these terms matter because they’re pillars to reinforce everybody’s sense of belonging and, to me, belonging is an irreducible need for people. The absence of it creates a type of suffering,” he says. “I’m quoting Brené Brown, from her book, ‘Atlas of the Heart.’ To me, the way Brown discusses the importance of belonging really speaks to why diversity, equity and inclusion work matters.”
Junco completed a Master of Arts in Teaching from Earlham College in 2009 and earned his bachelor’s degree in English from Augustana College two years earlier.
Much of his career has taken place in classrooms.
From 2014 to 2019, he taught English at Harlem High School in Machesney Park, where he also served on the Equity Committee. Before that, he taught at middle schools and high schools in Indiana, New York and North Carolina.
“I come from a family of teachers, and English just really spoke to my soul,” says Junco, who lived in six different states but considers Naperville home. “English was one of those classes that answered a lot of the existential questions for me about how society worked and what human nature was like. The stories always resonated with me, and I always liked learning from my teachers.”
At the post-secondary level, he served on the faculty of Elgin Community College’s Transition Academy and as an adjunct English instructor at Rockford Career College.
He currently coordinates the Department of Curriculum and Instruction’s Teacher Leader Endorsement program, and has presented on antiracism, culturally responsive teaching and LGBTQ-sensitive professional development.
His in-progress dissertation focuses, appropriately, on social justice in schools.
Research already confirms “that finding a sense of belonging in close social relationships with other people in our community is essential to our well-being,” he says, which makes it a critical component for classrooms.
“The idea of working in areas of recruitment, retention and mentorship for diverse students was something that I just took to and was really passionate about,” Junco says.
“In education, we have a lot of room for growth in this area,” he adds. “If we can really get everybody behind the idea that these DEI efforts increase people’s sense of belonging, we can make educational institutions a place where people really thrive.”
Dean Elish-Piper shares that goal, calling Junco’s mission “vital.”
Among the results she expects is a leveraging of the “passionate and amazing” work already taking place in pockets throughout the college, such as from individual students, faculty and staff or in committees related to academic equity and curriculum.
Meanwhile, she says, “when you look at the fields of study we have in our college, all are really aligned with serving, helping others and making a positive difference in educating, supporting and contributing to others as they work toward their goals and engage in their communities.”
That creates a ripple effect.
“When the students we’re preparing go out, whether they’re going to be teachers, counselors, athletic trainers or exercise scientists, or whether they’re going to be in higher education or business or industry, they’re going to have opportunities to engage and make the most of their education in ways that are meaningful to them and to the communities they will serve,” Elish-Piper says.
“Having someone who is engaged in leading, doing and facilitating this work all day, every day, is going to be extremely helpful to allow us to connect pockets, to build on things that are going on and to invest in a lot of the great work that has already been started.”
