‘Accidental professor’ celebrates 20th year in academia

Celebrating Black History Month: Dr. Tracey Salisbury

By California State University, Bakersfield

February 16^th, 2021

“I do something I love, which is teach other individuals. I get to teach about Black people and Black culture. I get to share what I think an amazing group of people that we are with the world and our contributions to building this world and keeping this world sustainable,” said Dr. Tracey Salisbury, assistant professor of interdisciplinary studies.

Dr. Tracey Salisbury is a self-proclaimed accidental professor.

Initially, Dr. Salisbury started as a political science major at Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass., because she wanted to be a lawyer, like Perry Mason, of the famed TV and book series.

“I thought I was going to be a lawyer and go to law school and all kinds of things, but my entire life, I played sports and things like that, and I decided to come home to California after I graduated and landed a job in the movie industry as an accountant,” added Dr. Salisbury.

Dr. Salisbury started writing and after director Spike Lee came on the scene, she decided to follow her dream of moving to New York to attend film school at New York University (NYU). She had opportunities and came back home to pursue those.

But, the following year, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the American Basketball League (ABL) launched. Dr. Salisbury’s friends, many of whom were going to play, coach or be in management, encouraged her to go back to school to go into the field. They said that she could do film anytime.

It was then she decided to pursue her master’s degree in sports administration. Dr. Salisbury was going to come back and work in the WNBA, until her advisor and mentor told her she should apply for a Ph.D fellowship, which she went for and got in.

“It was never on my radar to teach,” said Dr. Tracey Salisbury. “Next fall will be my twenty-first year in academia.”

“I have never regretted it. I love teaching. I love working with young people. It is the best part about the job,” Dr. Salisbury added. “Being an educator has been a blessing in my life that I didn’t imagine was going to happen. That’s what I would say to young people – Don’t map your life out too far,” Dr. Salisbury continued.

‘Accidental professor’ celebrates 20th year in academia

What brought Dr. Salisbury to CSUB?

“I had returned to California because my mother was seriously ill,” said Dr. Salisbury. “I had spent a number of years living in other places and across the United States, and I decided to come home because I had been gone a long time and wanted to spend some time with my mom, which was a great thing because my mom ended up passing away from cancer, so I was glad to be home.”

Her mom ultimately passed away from cancer, and after taking some time off, Dr. Salisbury started applying to jobs in California. She realized how much she wanted to be back in California.

“I didn’t know much about CSUB. I have a knack for picking schools that don’t have football teams, but that’s fine. So far, it’s been great. As far as the students are concerned, it's been wonderful. I have high hopes that we're finally getting to what I was hired for, to be a part of an ethnic studies program. That's my passion right now is ethnic studies, reaching that and getting that out into the community of Bakersfield,” said Dr. Salisbury.

Dr. Salisbury is committed to focusing her career on ethnic studies and changing the way America views the social injustice that has occurred, especially in the climate it has experienced as of lately.

“America has hit a particular kind of rock bottom, and we are now rebuilding and we now have to work together and get things back on track or we are going to have a serious problem in this world because this country is going to be a minority-majority country and if we do not have a reckoning and an understanding of what has happened in our past, we are going to continue those mistakes and it's going to be to the detriment to not just people of color, but to white people,” added Dr. Salisbury.

The ethnic studies professor’s goal is to educate her students and to make sure they have the best tools to succeed in the world, because she knows firsthand how frightening it can be as a first-time college student to walk into a room of all white people.

“I know how much it takes to leave a safe family space and to move to a whole other city where you don't know anybody, a whole new state where you don't know anybody and have to succeed in this world,” Dr. Salisbury added.

Dr. Salisbury also encourages her colleagues to do better with the state of social injustice as it is now. Ethnic and Black studies, to her, is the opportunity to make change in the world and in the community to make life better.

“We have to make the people that want to be around us work better. And, if we can't share, if we can't be open and we can't share things with them to help understand, then how can we communicate? What we have now is a failure to communicate, but if you're going to tell me you're not even going to bother to listen, you're not even going to try, you're going to do everything you can to get in the way of that relationship, I've got nothing. I've got nothing. I'm done trying to beg people to do the right thing.

If COVID-19 has taught us anything in the last year, it is to focus on the things that matter – to take a closer look at who we interact with, how we live our daily lives and looking at ourselves and others.

“If you don’t find value in other people at this point in time after nearly a year of this, then I don’t have anything for you. You lack a humanity that I no longer desire to figure out why you don’t have it,” said Dr. Salisbury.

“My philosophy as a teacher has always been any educator that doesn’t think they can learn something from their students is not a successful educator. You can learn as much from your students as you teach to them, because it’s a process,” she added.

It’s something Dr. Salisbury has found at CSUB, and she would like to spend the rest of her career at CSUB, working on ethnic studies and Black studies.

“My take on this Black History Month is to be louder and more forceful, and to push young women, Black women in particular, but all young women, to take their place in this world because we don’t owe anybody anything anymore,” said Dr. Salisbury.

As CSUB, and the rest of the nation, takes time to pause and acknowledge Black History Month and what it means, Dr. Salisbury said, “Black History Month, to me, has always been a chance not to focus on the negativity or all the overcoming of something, but a celebration of Black life and Black culture.”

Regardless of all that has or hasn’t taken place just yet, Dr. Salisbury is excited about the younger generation of students, especially those at CSUB.

“I see amazing, bright, brilliant people that are going to do wonderful things and they just need the support and the belief and the time. I want them to understand, young people at CSUB to understand that every pot must sit on its own bottom, as my mother used to say to me. You do things in your own time,” said Dr. Salisbury.

Dr. Salisbury wants CSUB students to have the belief that they can do anything – anything they set their minds to, anything they’re willing to work for, because she has done it.

“I'm like these kids here. I was like them. This is why I wanted to come to this particular institution is because I was like these kids. I was first time college. I didn't leave the country until I was a grown woman, and I've seen a good portion of this world. I've experienced a good portion of this world. I've had amazing experiences that when people hear my background, they go, ‘Oh wow, how did you do all these different things?’”

Dr. Salisbury is proud of the person she has become, both personally and professionally. She was the first person in her family to earn a Ph.D, has had a wonderful career and has a beautiful family. She is pleased with the life she has.

“I've got a lot more to do but I think I've achieved quite a few things in my life that a young Tracy Salisbury coming from a hard-working, working class family never thought, imagined. A little girl that used to read books all the time and imagined going to Australia and finally got to get there,” said Dr. Salisbury.

That’s exactly why she encourages young people to go after the dreams on their heart, no matter how big or small it might be.

“You may not get everything you want, but you can get what you need but there's that one dream, you needed to pursue it. You needed to pursue it, no matter how little it is. Your dream is your dream, but no matter how little it is, I want you to feel that you gave it a good try to follow it. You may not get it, but you tried and that's the whole point. That's the whole point.”