In celebration of the University of Michigan’s Bicentennial, the U-M Library partnered with the national oral history organization StoryCorps to record and preserve stories from our community. During the Fall Festival Bicentennial Celebration, participants had conversations with friends, classmates, family members and colleagues about meaningful experiences at U-M. These stories, presented and curated by the U-M Library in collaboration with StoryCorps, capture the essence of the U-M’s past and present.

Interview No. 9: Kimberly Ransom & Tonya Kneff-Chang

Kimberly Ransom and Tonya Kneff-Chang, PhD candidates in the U-M School of Education, talk about their co-teaching experience. As women of different cultures, they addressed uncomfortable issues around race — the hard topics — in a classroom with a predominantly white audience.

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“I want you to dance through this class, because when you get out there and you’re serving kids like me, I want you to be able to love them and to care about them and to teach them. The only way you’re going to do that is to dance in here on the hard stuff.” —Kimberly Ransom