(Re)Imagining the Work: Counter-Storytelling in a Time of Organizational Change

Abstract

This chapter explores the power of counter-storytelling as a strategy for organizational change within higher education. Drawing from the author’s experience leading a multicultural office during a heightened period of student activism, it traces the creation and transformation of the Unity Office and its central gathering space, the People’s Lounge. Through personal reflection and collective memory, the author illuminates the evolution of this identity-based center as both a refuge and a site of resistance for marginalized students over several decades. The chapter underscores how storytelling can serve as an act of reclamation: bridging generational experiences of students and staff of color to inspire institutional transformation. Ultimately, it invites practitioners to recognize storytelling as a vital organizational practice, one capable of shaping organizational identity and sustaining community spaces that cultivate belonging and justice.