When I entered graduate school, I thought becoming a scholar meant learning to sound like one. Academia had its own language, and much of it did not sound anything like me. I heard interesting ideas, but they were often hidden beneath layers of jargon. I assumed that serious scholars must write this way and that, if I wanted to be taken seriously, I would have to learn to do the same.

Graduate education frequently teaches students to imitate other academics before they learn to trust their own minds. We learn the relevant theories, the accepted methods, and the proper vocabulary of our fields. Of course, some of this training is necessary as scholars need to understand the traditions they are entering and the standards that guide rigorous research. However, learning a field’s conventions can lead scholars to surrender to them. We begin to believe that there is only one way to conduct research, one way to write, and one kind of voice worthy of being heard. When I was a graduate student, I wish someone had said to me, “Your voice is worthy. It does not need to sound like everyone else’s voice.”

I came to academia from a rural, impoverished background. I grew up in a large family where hard work was a daily part of life. We took care of gardens, cared for animals, completed household chores, and watched our parents work more than one job. I did not grow up surrounded by academics or by people who taught me the unwritten rules of higher education. When I entered academic spaces, I had to learn those rules by observing others.

People from poor, working-class, and first-generation backgrounds often become skilled observers in the academy. We watch how people speak, dress, and interact. We notice what they assume everyone knows. We learn which parts of ourselves seem welcome and which parts might expose us as outsiders. This kind of attentiveness can help us move through unfamiliar environments, but it can also teach us to edit ourselves before anyone asks us to.

As a historian, I had been taught to tell stories clearly, build arguments from evidence, and write in language people could understand. Yet other parts of my academic training seemed to regard accessible writing with suspicion and as inferior. All too often, I’d notice scholars using complicated prose to indicate intellectual depth. My clear writing was often dismissed as too simple.

Over time, I have become a strong advocate for clarity in writing, noting whenever and wherever I can that clarity does not mean your work lacks rigor. This realization changed my relationship with writing. I stopped trying to prove that I belonged in academia by sounding like everyone else and began concentrating on whether I had something important to say and whether I was saying it clearly.

Finding my scholarly voice involved removing some of what I had been taught to place between myself and the reader. To write more clearly, I needed greater confidence in my evidence, argument, and my own capacity to communicate both.

My research focuses on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Minority Serving Institutions, racism in faculty hiring, educational inequality, and the people whose knowledge and contributions have often been ignored. These subjects cannot remain confined to academic journals. If I write about inequity in language that only a small group of specialists can understand, I have limited the usefulness of the work before it reaches the people who might act on it.

I write books and peer-reviewed articles, but I also write opinion essays, reports, public commentary, and guidance for people working inside colleges and universities. I speak with journalists, policymakers, institutional leaders, faculty members, and students. For me, these activities are central to the purpose of higher education.

Public scholarship is sometimes treated as less rigorous than writing intended primarily for other academics. However, writing for a broad audience requires discipline. The writer has to know what the argument is, which evidence is most convincing, and what the reader needs to understand.

Scholarship is richer when people bring their histories, values, questions, and voices to it. Rather than scholars who sound exactly alike, we need scholars who have something meaningful to say and the courage to say it clearly.