Turning Reactions Into Action
By samuel murphy
Ever since his early twenties, Addrain Conyers knew he was going to change the world.
That is until he stepped into a classroom full of third graders. Two days later, he realized he needed more training. “Those kids kicked my butt!” Mr. Conyers recalls, “I made the biggest mistake. I smiled, and they said, ‘Oh, he’s fresh meat!’”
He learned a few lessons from his first experience in the classroom. First, Mr. Conyers realized he was not destined to be an elementary school teacher. However, being in a classroom allowed him to see specific issues in the country’s education system. “I realized that if I wanted to make a difference, I needed some more education,” Mr. Conyers says.
After graduating from Boston College, Mr. Conyers quickly pursued graduate school. Once completing his graduate education, Mr. Conyers became Dr. Conyers, a step he felt necessary to make a stronger difference.
Since he arrived at Marist in 2012, Dr. Conyers has been an active member of the faculty and school community. As a four-time winner of the Marist SGA Faculty Member of the Year Award for the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Dr. Conyers is no stranger to accolades. But recognition was never his intent.
Intent. That is a word Dr. Conyers thinks about and uses frequently. “I can only speak on my intent,” he often says. And his intent is to better the student body.
“All of my work is service based — my teaching, scholarship, service, and organized events are all grounded in service provided to the community.”
Illustration by Eva Wenrich
From the first course he taught at Marist, Dr. Conyers has prioritized his students and is constantly reminded why he loves teaching. “Towards the end of the semester, I see they are able to process things at a different level, and that’s where a lot of my joy from teaching comes. And you can’t put a price tag on that.”
But with the outbreak of COVID-19, the world shut down. Then, the world broke out with calls for racial equality and systematic change after the deaths of multiple unarmed African Americans, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmad Arbery.
“Society had to carry multiple pandemics and it started to break society down,” Dr. Conyers says. “Some would say the biggest event of 2020 was George Floyd’s death — I would argue and say the biggest event was the reaction to Floyd’s death.”
When the Marist community needed him, Dr. Conyers was exactly where you’d expect him to be: “My reaction was how to protect the mental health of our students.” In the span of a few months, college students had been sent home from school because of a deadly virus and now faced another reckoning.
Dr. Conyers wanted to ensure the student body felt supported by their community. The challenge was making that clear.
Throughout the summer and into the fall, Dr. Conyers actively engaged with the Marist community. To establish the changes he was looking to create, he knew he could never do it alone. And when Dr. Conyers reached out to the community for support, they lifted him up. “This is about unification because we’re going through it together,” he says.
Dr. Conyers led multiple events and roundtables to engage in important discussions about the civil unrest and cries for social justice, as well as reform. The Explorations in Social Justice Series: Agents of Change in September 2020 was a three-day event that also included a conversation with a member of George Floyd’s family, an interactive panel on how to advance anti-racist work, and a discussion with student leaders on their dedication to ensuring social equality and justice.
Once discussions were in motion, Dr. Conyers surveyed the type of engagement on campus. He found it essential to ask, ‘Is this effective?’ or ‘Is this working?’ To maintain his objective, Dr. Conyers is always alert at the wheel. “I’m never in cruise control,” he says. “I am always assessing the course because it’s always about the outcome.”
This isn’t only a metaphor but remains true during the hour and a half drive Dr. Conyers makes to Marist every day from the Albany area. “I rarely use cruise control because it makes me a little more in touch with driving.”
During 2020, Dr. Conyers found encouraging moments of progress despite all of the year’s challenges. “There was a time where the students marched on campus — they came together.” Saying that sentence, Dr. Conyers cannot hide the smile on his face. “It’s hard not to enjoy that.”
There’s still plenty of change to establish in the upcoming years. But, when there’s a road with many obstacles, Dr. Conyers is a great driver to have at the wheel. “I have this persistence to complete anything I’m in. I don’t like doing things halfway. Even my own kids know, ‘If Dad says he’s going to do it, he’s going to do it.’”
for the record uncut
object photography
Photography by Bobby Oliver
For this year’s project, we asked our Changemakers to bring items that had meaning to them to the shoot.
“Saddleback Leather Bag- It's been with me through most of my professional career. I receive a lot of compliments because of how nice and rugged it looks, but people do not know what the bag has been through for it to appear nice, tough, and dependable at the same time. I feel the bag is a symbol of my journey.
Personalized Game of Thrones Tumbler- I drink a LOT of tea and I loved the Game of Thrones, besides the last two seasons. My wife personalized the tumbler with my children's names for a Father's Day gift, the father of wildings. I get to enjoy many of my favorites things in one item, every day.”