Episode 107: In AWE of Amanda Florence Goodenough-Overcomer Series

Amanda Florence Goodenough (she/her/hers) is a dedicated educator operating from a cultural humility framework to center and elevate historically marginalized voices, promote belongingness and mattering, disrupt structural inequities, and advance intersectional social and racial justice. Amanda has over 15 years of professional experience in equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice efforts within a higher education setting.

Currently, Amanda serves as the Director of Campus Climate at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (UWL), while also being a part-time doctoral candidate in UWL’s Student Affairs Administration and Leadership program. On campus, in addition to facilitating workshops, programming, and assessment, Amanda has provided leadership for Awareness through Performance and the Hate Response Team for over a decade and has co-founded RISE UP (Racial & Intersecting Identity Symposium for Equitable University Progress) and the nationally-growing Hate/Bias Response Symposium. Amanda’s focus areas include campus climate/culture, cultural humility, hate/bias response, anti-blackness, racial justice, multiracialism, microaggressions, bystander intervention, student activism, power/privilege/oppression, and healing centered engagement.

 Amanda resides in Wisconsin, where she attended the University of Wisconsin-Platteville for her Bachelor’s degree in Communications, before heading to the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse to earn a Master’s in College Student Development & Administration. In her personal life, Amanda and her partner enjoy raising their multiracial kiddos and helping them to make meaning of the world.

In this Episode, we discuss:

  • Amanda’s role as she serves both the UW-La Crosse community as well as a wider network of organizations to passionately disrupt structural inequities in our schools and communities. 
  • We talk about her experiences of overcoming loss of her father at the start of the COVID pandemic and the challenge of her role through the racial pandemic as well.
  • She shares with us her experience growing up in a community where acts of blatant racism caused her family to have to overcome daily challenge, and how she now uses that story to deepen her impact on equity work today. 
  • Amanda opens up about overcoming the loss of both her parents in a deeply poignant way, and she shares beautiful truths and wisdom for us throughout this interview about rising up from much adversity.   


Friends, our conversation went longer than most interviews I publish here on the podcast, and I am honored to share the entirety of it with you. There is a mission in Amanda’s message, and I honor deeply the sacrifice it is to share our wounds with others so that they might heal through our stories. I know this community will love Amanda’s heart, her truths, and the way she weaves in wisdom through her story to teach us all that overcoming is a continuous journey. It is with grate honor and deep joy that I share with you Amanda Florence Goodenough’s Overcomer story. 

Connect with Amanda:
Amanda on Facebook
Amanda’s Professional Profile 

Social Responsibility Speaks, LLC –coming soon

Sarah Johnson: 

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