Acts of Wellness: Joe Saucedo

My name is Joe Saucedo. I’m Director of Student Diversity and Multicultural Affairs at my institution, where I oversee the operations and strategic direction of a department tasked with the retention of historically underrepresented student populations. I’m also responsible for the ongoing multicultural education and training of our university’s student, staff, and faculty populations.

I identify as a Latino, cisgender male, first-generation college graduate. I am straight, married, able-bodied, able-minded, and a parent of a toddler. I am also Catholic.

Coming into this study, there was a lot on my mind — a lot of different emotional responses. First, gratitude that a study like this was actually being developed. I think it’s important work. Going in, I felt tired. Exhausted. Emotionally drained, mentally and physically. Some of that I thought might simply be attributed to getting older — I celebrated my 40th birthday that fall. Wearing multiple hats at work and in my personal life, being a parent — all of it together leaves you feeling tired and drained.

But alongside that fatigue, there were also moments of feeling genuinely fueled and energized. A lot of that came from time spent talking with students, with colleagues, with my team. Getting home tired, and then completely lighting up the moment I saw my son. Playing with him, spending time with my wife, catching up with friends and people who are important to me.

With regard to social justice fatigue specifically, I entered this study feeling disheartened and angry about the state of the world — about where we are as a country, about the negativity, about the work being done at the national and state level to reverse the progress made over decades toward social justice. All of that was weighing heavily on me throughout the study.

There were a lot of lessons learned about myself through this process. The biggest takeaway was the power of reflection. I work at an institution where reflection is genuinely a signature trademark of how we operate — and yet I recognized just how poorly I actually engage in it myself. The big lesson is that I need structure. Consciously reflecting, journaling, writing things down — because it’s in those moments of reflection that I’ve been able to take real stock of what I could be doing better, and also to be reminded of all the meaningful things happening in both my personal and professional life.

Another significant lesson was the power of community. The conversations I’ve been able to have with colleagues, with my team, with direct reports, and with student leaders — those are the conversations that lift me up. They remind me of why this work matters, even in the moments when I feel like we’re institutionally falling short of our promises to students and to our broader communities. When I’m rooted in those relationships — with people who genuinely care about social justice and live it out every day — I find myself believing that things are going to be okay.

In terms of what I would share with institutions looking for ways to support staff through social justice fatigue: I think it’s important, first, for administrators and anyone entering this work to recognize that an institution is a business. Ultimately, the bottom line is what matters — enrollment, graduation, retention, financial health. The emotional wellbeing of staff often ranks lower than those priorities. I say that not to be cynical, but to encourage individuals entering this work to go in clear-eyed about that reality — while also recognizing where they do have power to exert their own influence.

We cannot do this work, we cannot persist and persevere, if we are not taking care of ourselves. This study brought that into sharp focus for me — how important it is to prioritize my own mental health, my own emotional health, my own spiritual wellbeing. I don’t want to leave the best version of myself at the office.

And institutions need to hear this too: unless they are prioritizing the wellness of not just students, but the staff and faculty doing this work, people will continue to experience burnout — and in some cases, they will leave.

For individuals, the message is this: we matter just as much as the students we serve. We need to take care of ourselves — not as an afterthought, but as a practice.