This entire website is grounded in a real dissertation by a real doctoral candidate. Before exploring the guide or the resources, it's worth spending a moment with the research itself — what Diamond set out to study, why it matters, and how she went about it.
Diamond's core research question was:
How does new media podcasting influence Black and Brown creatives' experiences in higher education, and how can colleges and universities intentionally integrate podcasting to foster spaces where Black and Brown creatives can amplify their voices, cultivate creative confidence, and present counter-narratives?
Her three sub-questions:
What role does podcasting play in fostering spaces that encourage Black and Brown creatives to amplify their voices in collegiate spaces?
In what ways does participation and engagement in media encourage Black and Brown creatives to cultivate creative confidence and cultural expression in higher education?
How can colleges and universities utilize podcasting and media tools to encourage Black and Brown creatives to unapologetically explore their creative minds and present counter-narratives?
Diamond defines Black and Brown creatives (BBC) as African, Latinx, Indigenous, Caribbean, and BIPOC descendants who use their talents and strengths to amplify culture and education. This is a deliberately broad definition — it includes students, faculty, staff, and professionals connected to higher education who identify as creative and who are navigating institutions that were not designed with them in mind.
The question she brings to this community is one of recognition: what do you know, what can you do, and why isn't higher education doing a better job of seeing you?
Higher education in the United States is in a moment of contraction. Funding cuts, political attacks on diversity and inclusion efforts, censorship pressures, and the ongoing underrepresentation of Black and Brown faculty and students all create urgency for research that asks: what would it look like if institutions actually served these communities?
Diamond's research argues that podcasting — as a tool, a pedagogy, and a form of cultural expression — offers one concrete answer. It creates space for voice. It builds community. It can exist within institutions or beyond them. And it is already something Black and Brown creatives are doing, with or without institutional support.
Diamond used a convergent parallel mixed methods design — meaning she collected quantitative and qualitative data simultaneously and integrated them at the analysis stage. Specifically:
A survey reaching fifty to one hundred Black and Brown creatives connected to higher education, measuring creative identity, podcasting engagement, experiences of belonging, and confidence
A focus group with five participants, recorded in a professional studio, producing the two podcast episodes that form the heart of her dissertation findings
Orientation meetings with each participant to build trust and explain the process before any recording began
The podcasting methodology was not just the product — it was part of the research design. The act of inviting Black and Brown creatives into a studio and asking them to speak was itself a form of culturally sustaining practice.