About Joey
Educator | Blogger | Photographer | Podcaster | PhD Student
Hi, I'm Joey (He/Him). I'm an educator, lawyer, PhD student, podcaster, blogger, and photographer passionate about people, their stories, and storytelling. I'm grateful be able to help people, communities, and organizations cultivate their senses of racial literacy, anti-racism, authentic allyship, and social justice. Through guided dialogue across difference, interactive workshops, and assigned introspective commitments I seek to help people engage in the lifelong work of social justice towards community liberation and social progress.
If you want to know more about me, my background, guiding principles, workshops and other services keep scrolling. Workshop descriptions, pricing, and request/consultations available below.
Credentials
Formal Education
Ohio State University - College of Education & Human Ecology (PhD)
Philosophy & History of Education - Expected 2026
Ohio State University - Moritz College of Law
Juris Doctor (JD) - 2022
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Kent State University
Master of Education (M.Ed)
Higher Education & College Student Personnel - 2017
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University of Vermont
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.)
Religion - 2015
Work Experience
Youthful Life Blogger
since 2010
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the Ohio State University - Lecturer (Aug. 2022 - present)
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Otterbein University -
Center for Student Involvement
Assistant Director Orientation & Transition Programs
(5/17-9/19)
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Case Western Reserve University - Office of Student Activities & Leadership + Greek Life Office
Grad Intern: Programming & Greek House Director
(7/15-5/17)
Fun Facts
Met Serena Williams in a Build-A-Bear Workshop
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Best birthday was my 18th - had a water balloon fight and got a concussion.
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Served as a quasi-therapist for my "fake" toddler nephew from his rocking chair while he recounted his daily daycare misdeeds.
Guiding values
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Vulnerability - We must be willing to give part of ourselves, our experiences, and our stories if we seek to forge dynamic communities, connections, and truths.
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Authenticity - We must honor the entirety of who we are in order to show up as your most genuine selves.
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Transformation - We must be willing and committed to being changed by the work of social justice.
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Sustainability - The work of social justice is not complete until ALL people have equitable opportunities and needs met. This work must be sustained continually.
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Hope - We have to have hope that things can change, be different, and be better. Without hope none of this work has purpose.
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Grace - We can strive to give ourselves and others grace, practice patience, and demonstrate empathy as we able to better faciltiate this work.
Workshop Descriptions
Welcome to the Neighborhood: Social Justice 101
(STARTER) Get the basics of social justice, power, privilege, oppression, social and personal identities. Through guided activities, facilitated dialogue, and introspection we’ll come to understand what social justice is, why it matters, and what we can do in working towards equity, justice, and community.
Building the Basics: Social Identities
(Starter) This workshop sets participants up to join the conversation around social identity. Participants will learn about their own socialization, social identity theory, and how social identities have been used to other/exclude and to what end. This dynamic workshop uses activities, worksheets, and dialogue to give participants the tools to build from.
Breaking the Fourth Wall: Anti-Racist History
(INTERMEDIATE) This workshop tackles key moments in US history and their impact on anti-Black racism. Participants get time and space to reflect on their own racialized socialization, name
stereotypes, beliefs, values, etc. and get acquainted with resources to update their knowledge. Participants will engage in activities and dialogue to depend their self and social understanding with race/racism.
Chalkboards & Clapbacks: Creating Inclusive Classrooms
(SPECIALITY) This workshop is for educators looking to create more welcoming classroom environments. Participants are guided through a dynamic workshop complete with worksheet on evaluating spaces, teaching methods, addressing racist incidents, and empowering students to bring their whole selves to the classroom.
In this Climate: Practicing Presence
This workshop creates space to de-stress, disengage from politics and the world, and practice gratitude to create our own peace. We commune through simple activities, reflection, and grounding dialogue. Participants will leave feeling refreshed, repurposed, and recommitted to ensuring peace is part of all of their days.
Me vs. Other Me: Embracing Vulnerability
(STARTER) This workshop gives participants the tools, guidance, and practice to embrace both the necessary discomfort needed for personal growth, and the vulnerability to be open to change. Participants establish a baseline for their own bodies and how they react to challenge, and proceed through facilitated activities that increase with introspection and depth. Participants leave with a better self-understanding of how they respond to difficult topics, how to ground
themselves, and to speak bravely.
Meet the Neighbors: Co-Creating Cultural Competency
(Starter) This workshop offers participants practice in developing cultural competency. Participants will engage with their own self-understanding, others, and media to recognize ways to expand their perspectives on the cultures they engage with. Participants will gain a better outlook on what they know, what is missing and why, and how to further their lifelong education. Participants will learn their role in co-creating multicultural communities.
All Aboard:
Cultivating
Chronic Allyship
(EXPERT) So you want to practice allyship? This workshop seeks to help participants understand the role of allies in social movements, the self-defeating nature of allyship, and qualities allies embody.
Participants will be introduced to tangible tactics to employ, ways to show up, and things to say to demonstrate the continual commitment of allyship. Activities and dialogue help facilitate
this workshop.
Recruit, Retain, Sustain: Creating Environments of Belonging
(EXPERT) This workshop covers taking a critical look at organizations and the spaces created overall and interpersonally. Participants will gain the skills needed to evaluate their own personal biases, have better interactions, and to cultivate cultures of belonging. Infographics, reflective questions, and structural thinking facilitates this workshop.
Your Fave Could Never: Building Your Personal Brand
You are your brand, and your brand is who you are. Each of us are now more than just who we appear to be on social media but become renowned for what we do, how we make others feels, and the connections we foster. We can be intentional in forging a memorable personal brand that's a true representation of who and how we are. This workshop is guided by a worksheet, interactive activities, and dialogue.
We Live in a Society: Practicing Authentic Self-Care & Building Emotional Literacy
(MOST POPULAR) What is the toll of existing in an exhaustive world? Join us to spend time interrogating our
relationships with personal maintenance, building a useable self-care regimen, and developing
our emotional literacy. We’ll learn tangible ways to practice authentic, whole-person self-care
through guided activities, dynamic dialogue, and self-reflection – specifically in doing social
justice work.
Monsters & Make-Believe: Race, Racism and US Society
(Starter) This workshop creates does the heavy lifting of recounting how narratives have been used to create the concepts of race and racism in the United States. Participants will get practice recognizing the stories they have taken in, how race and racism impact their day-to-day lives, and why race has always mattered to US society. Participants will gain language around race/racism, racial identity development, and come away with next steps on how to further their racial literacy.
Into the Multiverse: Breaking Down Racial Barriers
(EXPERT) Join us for a dynamic, interactive workshop on addressing race/racism, dialogue across
difference, practicing everyday anti-racism, and cultivating a sense self-defeating allyship. Through meaningful discussion, introspective activities, and multimedia resources we’ll build your confidence in combating racism in your sphere of influence, and to forging sustainable
relationships across difference.
Black by Popular Demand: Navigating PWI's
(SPECIALTY) This workshop is for Black and other students of color experiencing life in predominantly white spaces. Through affirming dialogue around race, racism, self-care, and self-preservation participants will learn to choose their battles, combat racism, and embrace self-love.
Talk That Talk:
Dialogue Across
Difference
(STARTER) How do we talk about talking? This workshop prepares us to have difficult conversations across identity through interactive activities, practice, and tangible tips for setting boundaries, intentions, managing emotions, and honoring discomfort in challenge.
It's the Thought for Me: Cultivating Cognitive Consistency
This workshop creates space to think about how we think and view the world. Participants will learn about their own socialization, the concept of cognitive dissonance, and how to create a cohesive perspective on a challenging world. Activities, worksheets, and dialogue facilitate this workshop.
Who Are You: Intersectionality & Leading with Your Whole Self
(STARTER) Who are you? How we answer that questions depends on many factors including our society identities. This workshop helps participants explore how who they are is impacted by the identities they carry and their awareness of them. This workshop is guided by reflective activities, dialogue, and an accompany worksheet.
Man's World: Redefining Tender Masculinity
What does it mean to be a man in the world today? Are we empowered by or caged by masculinity. This workshop helps us explore the emerging concept of tender masculinity, heterosexism, sexism, cisgenderism, and mental health with masculinity in mind. Through interactive activities, and robust dialogue we'll redefine our own understandings of masculinity.