When Jean Munson left Guam and arrived at UNLV as a student in 2005, she thought the university was humongous. As campus evolved, so did her perspective.
After earning a bachelor's in history in 2009 and participating in NEW Leadership Nevada (NEWL), she became program manager for the program run by the Women’s Research Institute of Nevada in the College of Liberal Arts. There, she helps the state’s college women cut big goals down to size and take up space in the classroom, boardroom, and the community. Along the way, she’s broken barriers as an Asian American business woman and artist and used her voice to raise awareness of Asian American and Pacific Islander issues.
What inspired you to get into your field?
Pre-NEW Leadership I was thinking I had to have one career, either at a museum or teaching. NEW Leadership taught me that I can have all kinds of careers, at all types of seasons and ages in my life. I hit the ground running with art. I liked baking. I even tried my hand at being an aerobics instructor. My strongest experiment was in art.
Now as program manager at NEWL, I’m teaching and fostering flexibility in our students who are about to graduate or even in their college careers. That’s how I got into this role, a lot of experimentation and networking. NEW Leadership gave me a chance to work with a lot of people. Now I’ve been on podcasts with other alums. I’ve worked on a children’s book with another alum. It’s just been a really great space.
Tell us a little about your artistry and the impetus for starting your comics publishing company.
I graduated with a history degree and realized I wasn’t going to teach history. What did I really want to do? I was in the middle of the recession. Why not experiment with what I think I’m really good at, which is art. I put myself out there on Craigslist. I got work on murals. I illustrated a chapter book. I was still a very raw artist.
Even while working my day job, I would always take days off to learn from other artists in the valley, or I would go to networking events or conventions for artists. I decided to make my own series between 2010 and 2015. I gained a great amount of capital working on my comic “Pushover” about being senior class president and being really burned out. With that capital and after a work injury at the bakery I managed, I decided to create an organization that could carry the good values I learned in NEW Leadership.
One day I went on Facebook and announced that anyone who wanted to start this comics company with me should meet me at the diner Blueberry Hill. Six men showed up. My husband and I have been sustaining Plot Twist Publishing since 2016. We’re continuing to make collaborative comics in the valley as well as teach comics. I am the first Asian woman/woman of color to run my own comics publishing company in Nevada. I wouldn’t even be able to label or name that if it weren’t for NEW Leadership. It taught me to pay attention to things I was pioneering.
What’s the last big project you completed and how did you celebrate or decompress afterward?
There are a lot of cool projects happening at WRIN like the Girls Empowerment Middle School Las Vegas. This 20th year I felt like an investigator. I looked at the roster of all our alums on social media and reached out. That was a big project. We had a really big following. We had 40-45 alums since 2003 participate. We got to hear their stories and reinvigorate their love for the program. It was a very emotional moment for me because it’s like they have this fervor to give back and be involved, and it’s because someone took a chance scouring LinkedIn to notice them. It’s like an unofficial sisterhood. Seeing them where they said they were going to be and then arriving there has been a very cool part of that project.
Is this what you thought you’d be doing when you grew up?
I always wanted to be a high school teacher, but not the kind that just collects homework and gives quizzes. I always wanted to be like the teachers I grew up with who were invested in my emotional well-being and where I wanted to go. I thought of a minor in education at the time, but it just didn’t feel like a good fit. Now in the role of program manager, the possibilities are endless. I have the ability to invent and to make something in a space better. I really am glad I found this role overall.
Tell us a funny story about one of your colleagues.
With NEW Leadership you get to see these very accomplished student leaders unwind when we have karaoke night after our keynote. Everyone feels very pumped. You see even the shyest person come out. This night was invented because when I was a NEWL student in 2009, we wanted to stay up late and kick up the CD player. To see something that I built as a young person still be used is great. Sometimes the speaker’s not working, or the projector’s not working. We’re just seeing the ingenuity and having fun. It’s always been something we look forward to in the middle of stressful programming.
What was your greatest day on campus and what was your toughest?
There was one summer where we were helping a student fight homelessness. We pulled every resource on campus to get them care. It’s really something to watch them thrive in their full-time employment now. Old Jean would’ve said, ‘What can I get you?’ But every conversation I started with this student, I said, ‘How are you going to help yourself today?’
Teaching strategy versus codependency was a hard lesson I learned as an educator and a mentor. Just to see them have gained a little bit of weight has been really transformative for me. You come to work and want to help change lives and be part of their greatness.
What would campus look like without NEW Leadership?
There wouldn’t be as much female camaraderie. We created a community that isn’t money based. We wouldn’t see the level of female and queer leadership on campus. Those two things would be far less, especially in hard sciences. We’ve given a great deal of skill-set training to those fields.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Do not drink three Frappuccinos a day. Get some real sleep. Otherwise you’re on track for some really poor health choices and stress. Schedule the pause.
Tell us about an object in your office and what it represents to you.
A candle I got in my first semester teaching in the art department. It was from my student who had a lot of attitude, and she was on track to be an art educator. It felt like a little bit of pressure teaching that semester. She gave me that candle after I gave everyone a comic book curated to their interest to close out the last day. She held me by the hand, looked me in the eye and said, “You’re a good educator. Please accept this.” I have never lit this candle because it reminds me of her and what I aim to do for students.
Tell us about a moment in life when you’d like to have a do-over.
I really didn’t think graduate school was for me. I loved my history degree, but I didn’t know if it was going to expand more in women’s history because the faculty were starting to retire. I didn’t know if I wanted to get an MBA even though I run a publishing company. I already deal with the day-to-day operation of that. I thought I didn’t have a place for graduate school.
Sometimes during finals and midterms week, my students would open up to me on very personal issues they were dealing with. I kept thinking ‘I’m their art instructor. Why are they telling me these things?’ I realized I had the power to make people feel safe and heard. I started to consider graduate school again for school counseling. This is an avenue that I can thrive at and that I care about. I haven’t been in school since 2009. It’s wild to finally arrive here.
What would be your ideal summer vacation?
I just did it. Even if I had a $1 million to travel the world, I would still always go back to Guam. For me, it’s home. It’s very far, 17-hour flight, not fun. But that’s my ideal vacation because being a historian, I love who I was in the past. I love learning about how that’s transforming now.
You’ve lent your voice to important conversations about stemming anti-Asian hate such as the “We Need to Talk About AAPI Inclusion” program. Why did you feel compelled to speak up?
As an undergrad here, I was doing cultural presentations for the Filipino-American Student Association. As for gaining my history degree, I only learned about women’s activism. I didn’t really learn about AAPI activism until I was a staff member, and I audited classes in the Asian and Asian American Studies program. I attended a Barrick Lecture Series and went up to one of the faculty members from that department. I told them I’d love to learn more, and they let me audit their classes.
I networked and collaborated with the students. I built a podcast with one of the students. We had candid conversations and educated each other on nuances in our culture. Having those conversations brought me to the “We Need to Talk” panel. After that I was absorbed into the library project logging my personal history about being in the comics scene as an Asian woman. Having those positions in advocacy don’t really matter to me; I just care about the conversations we’re having. I always had my hand in a lot of things.
Undergrads aren’t really encouraged enough to take those classes. I feel like I’m a gateway to say if you really like the things I’m talking about, check out Asian and Asian American Studies.
