Episode 05: Tka Pinnock

“You have to navigate your way through Queen’s as if you belong here.”

How does one make meaningful change in the world? In this episode, Tka Pinnock, Artsci'07, tells us about her journey to finding a sense of belonging at Queen’s and feeling empowered to take ownership through her passion for justice, equality, and accessible cancer research.

Transcript

Copy

Cause & Effect, Episode 5, Tka Pinnock, Artsci’07

Host:  So, here’s a deep question: How do you make meaningful change in the world? That’s the kind of question you ask yourself a lot if you happen to work in fundraising. And the answer is probably obvious, right? It’s money. Well, yes. But also no. A lot of people have money and don’t make meaningful change. And a lot of people are able to make meaningful change without a lot of money. And those are the really interesting people, right? Because we can all be like them. But how do we do it? I guess that’s what I’m really asking. How can you – regardless of your resources – use what you have to change the world? I told you it was a deep question. And I think I might have stumbled onto the answer.

I’m Deborah Melman-Clement, and this is Cause and Effect, a Queen’s Alumni Review podcast, where we dive into the motivations of philanthropists and explore what they’re passionate about and the impact they have on the world. 

So, the answer to my little deep question might surprise you. Or it might not. It’s all about how you see yourself. The activist Grace Lee Boggs said, “You cannot change any society… unless you see yourself as belonging to it and responsible for changing it.” Unless you see yourself as belonging to it. That’s the key. It sounds simple, but how do you learn to see yourself as someone who belongs to the world? Well, if you’re Tka Pinnock, you learn it at Queen’s.

The fact that Tka was able to learn such a huge, impactful lesson at Queen’s is all the more impressive when you stop to consider that her path to Queen’s wasn’t exactly typical. You see, she had only been in Canada for a couple of years when it was time to apply to university. She had never heard of Queen’s, but she was drawn to it for an unlikely – and by unlikely, I mean unusual – reason.

Tka:  I chose Q because it was in Kingston, Ontario. And I had migrated from Jamaica a year and a half before then, and I went to school in Kingston, Jamaica. And I thought “oh wow, another Kingston. Let’s see what’s happening down there.”

Tka: Unusual. That’s a good way to describe how Tka came to Queen’s. And considering that she was one of just a few dozen Black students at the time, it’s also a pretty good way to describe her experience here. Actually, Tka had an even better way of describing her Queen’s experience. She told me it was “bittersweet, but mostly sweet.”

Tka: I had a great community at Queen’s. And I had multiple communities. I had my roommates, and they were one community. It was me and five girls who lived together for the three years. Most of us were on residence together and we lived on the same floor and that was our home for three years – 316 Collingwood Street. I don’t know who lives there now, but shout out to my former home! And I was part of the Black student community as well. 

But there were also some hard moments. I was one of three Black students in my program. I never had a Black professor that I had a course with during my four years at Queen’s. I had other sort of unpleasant moments in Kingston that I think sometimes stained the experience that we had. And the usual stories – unfortunately they still happen – of someone wearing blackface during the Halloween weekend or just parties that had racially insensitive moments to them. So, there was that, and to some extent that kind of colours the experience of the city and the institution, but they were so much fewer and farther between than the good moments. 

Host: One of those good moments was an encounter with the history professor Dr. Barrington Walker, one of the few Black faculty at the time. Dr. Walker made a point of cultivating relationships with Black students and offering them advice to help them feel at home on a very white campus.

Tka: I remember him saying you have to take ownership of the space. You have to live at Queen’s and navigate your way through Queen’s as if you belong here, because everybody else, and by everybody else, it’s sort of the dominant group of students and faculty at Queen’s move about that space as if they belong there. It’s their space. I think he was encouraging me as a racialized student, as a Black student, to also feel like Queen’s was my own as much as it was anybody else’s. 

Host: It sounds like a nice complement to the Grace Lee Boggs quote, doesn’t it? If you act like you belong, eventually you’re going to feel like you belong, and that’s when you can really make an impact. That piece of advice was an enormous gift that Dr. Walker gave to Tka – because it empowered her to believe that she belonged – not just at Queen’s, but everywhere.

Tka: I left being very confident in my competency, in my intelligence, and in my skills. And as a Black woman, that has been such a great asset for me, moving through my career. Because I really do walk into spaces thinking, “I’m competent, I can do this job.” There isn’t a job that I’m going after that I feel that I’m never fully equipped to take on because there’s certainly a level of confidence that I have walking into a room as a Queen’s graduate. 

Host: That confidence has taken Tka far. After earning her BA in Political Science in 2007, she earned a master’s the following year from the London School of Economics. From there, she launched a career in community development. And now she’s working on her doctorate.  She’s also an active volunteer for causes that are important to her. And a few years ago, she had an experience that inspired her to do another sort of volunteer work. It was an experience that took her back to Queen’s.

Tka: My roommates and I would normally meet once a year, once every couple of years, you know, just to hang out with each other. And maybe about six years ago now, we decided we wanted to spend the weekend in Kingston.

We went to Chez Piggy. When you’re a student, that’s the highlight. You can’t wait for your parents to come to town so you can bribe them into taking you to Chez Piggy. We went to our old house and the students who were there were so gracious and allowed us to walk around and take pictures and relive our undergraduate moments. And I remember leaving that weekend thinking yeah, it was a lot sweeter than it was bitter. And I thought, OK, I think the stars are aligning here for me to reconnect with the institution and start to give back.

Host:  Not long after that fateful weekend, Tka became a member of the Queen’s University Council. It was a way to renew her ties with the university, but it was also more than that.

Tka:  That was a moment for me to get back to what Dr. Walker had said about you belong to this space and taking ownership of the space is also engaging with what’s happening with the space and trying to intervene in where the institution is going. 

Host: That’s the magic of belonging. It makes you realize that you have something to contribute. Remember that quote: “You cannot change any society unless… you see yourself as belonging to it and responsible for changing it.” Belonging is just half of it. You also have to reach the point where you can feel responsible for changing it when you know it can be better. For Tka, her student experience pointed the way to the change she wants to make.

Tka:  There’s no universal experience of Queen’s. There are those who come and have great experiences at Queen’s and there are those who don’t. And there are those who are somewhere in the middle. We had great experiences, but it could have been better. And the parts that weren’t great were unfortunately tied to demographics that we can’t change, whether it’s your race or your ethnicity. And for some it’s class. We don’t talk about this a lot. So, it’s great that we are in this space where we are trying to make the institution work for all the students. 

Host: And yet, despite its imperfections, Tka has never stopped believing in Queen’s. It’s a message she shares with everyone in her life.

Tka: There are family friends who, whenever I get an opportunity to give some advice about where should they be thinking about doing their post-secondary, Queen’s is always number one for me. In fact, because I think Queen’s should be the number one choice for students going on to university, I want to make sure it’s a welcoming space for those who choose it.

Host: It probably won’t surprise you to learn that Tka uses philanthropy to help make Queen’s more welcoming. She gives regularly to the Queen’s Fund, and she’s supported several bursaries – her way of acknowledging the financial aid that helped her get through Queen’s. But lately Tka has been thinking about philanthropy in another way – as a way to take Dr. Walker’s advice a step further and make a bold statement about how much she belongs here.

Tka:  I think philanthropy is one way to extend one’s legacy, but it’s also a way to put your mark on a space. I think again, particularly for me as a Black woman, putting my name on something, putting my family’s name on something at Queen’s, is a measure of belonging. It marks my presence in a particular way, but it also marks the presence of the Black students at Queen’s in a particular way, past, present, and future. It says we were here, we are here, and this space is our space. It is our home. 

Host:  Tka’s cause is justice and equality, but she has another cause that’s just as important to her.

Tka:  Cancer has done a number on my family in the deepest ways that one can think. And then last year I also lost my godmother, who in many ways was also my surrogate mother, to cancer. And she was located in Jamaica. So in the last year, I’ve also been thinking about how to extend the memory of my mother and to extend the reach of her life beyond me and her immediate family and to also honour the experience of my family and the people I love by supporting cancer research and advances in cancer that reach marginalized communities.

Host: Her gift will enable her to bring both of her causes together in a way that’s uniquely meaningful.

Tka:  Thinking about reaching racialized and immigrant populations in Canada that don’t often get tested for cancer. They don’t get screened for it and they’re often not part of clinical trials. There are some inequities in cancer research that I would like to support the redress of that.

You know, when I look at my godmother’s experience of doing cancer treatment, and she was a well-resourced woman, and it almost ate all of their life savings for her to access treatment. And then I think of folks who are not as well-resourced in Jamaica and across the Caribbean, who can’t even afford to be tested, much less afford treatment once they have been tested. And so it is my goal to make cancer research inclusive and accessible. 

Host: She’s taking aim at her goal by giving to Queen’s. It’s partly because she’s excited to support the world-class cancer and global health research that happens here. It’s also partly because she understands the power of philanthropy and the message it can send about belonging. Her inspiration is the Bader family and how they’re now almost synonymous with Queen’s.

Tka:  There’s a presence about that family name. Even if you’re unaware of who they are, their giving has touched Queen’s in so many ways that it’s hard to think of them as separate. I think when you hear that Bader family name, you connect it with Queen’s. There’s a way that they work in tandem with each other. So I think when donors put their names to something and put their treasure with something, there becomes this intertwining with the institution in a way that’s difficult to unknot. And I think that’s certainly what I would be hoping for.   

Host:  Intertwining your name with the Queen’s name. That’s definitely a sign that you belong.

I want to wrap up by taking a moment to thank our executive producers, Karen Bertrand and Scott Anderson. I also want to thank my Advancement colleagues, Michelle Fuko, Sara Franca, Rachel Castellano, Natalie Shearer, Alex Beshara, Callum Linden, Yeshi Dolma, Grace Morton, and Wendy Treverton. And, of course, I want to thank Tka Pinnock for so generously sharing her story with us.

If you have a great philanthropy story that want to share, we definitely want to hear from you. Reach out to your relationship manager if you have one, or look for me on the Advancement staff directory at Queen’sU-dot-ca. 

I’m Deborah Melman-Clement, and this was Cause and Effect. If you want more, you can subscribe on Spotify, Apple, Google, or Amazon.