Q: What do you suggest for educators and learners when it comes to equity in STEM education?  

 A: Well, one thing we can all do is accept the overwhelming scientific evidence that there are no math people. In fact, learning about this evidence had a huge role in my own evolution over the years. For instance, humans are not binary. Humans always fall on a continuum and math ability is no different. What we believe and say about math and who’s good at it matters a lot– and it impacts kids and students of all ages. So, check yourself and be vigilant. Stereotypes exist, biases are real, and women, particularly women of color, pay a heavy price as we see through their underrepresentation in STEM fields.   

‘Math people’ is a myth that needs to die. Math is a skill to be learned, not a trait that you’re born with or without. So please be very careful what you say, particularly around children, they don’t need to be infected with any more stereotypes.  

Q: Your work revolves around (In)Equity in STEM; how did your background help shape this?  

A: I grew up in a large, blue-collar family in the rural town of Blissfield, Michigan. A first-gen college student, I completed a bachelor’s in mathematics at Lake Superior State University in 1993.  I then went to graduate school at Purdue University, receiving a PhD in mathematics in 1999. As a white, hetero, cis male I’ve benefitted from privileges not extended to most. It took years to recognize and accept this fact. Traveling the world, even living abroad for two years, helped. Being a single father helped. Listening to and learning from people who don’t look like me, love like me, or experience this world like me guides my evolution and inspires the fight against the ‘isms (sexism, racism, elitism, etc.) that keep STEM an exclusive affair.   

I really enjoy the binary nature of math problems. You either get the correct answer, or you don’t, right? It’s black or white and correct answers are crystal clear. I wish everything was so simple! When it comes to education, or anything else involving human dynamics or experiences, nothing is so simple. For instance, being good at math is often a proxy for being smart. And in our education system, correct answers are a proxy for one’s math ability. These oversimplifications can have devastating consequences because they suggest students are dumb when they get a wrong answer. Which breaks my heart, because correct answers are a questionable measure of talent and math skills are a poor proxy for general intelligence. Examples like this contribute to inequity in STEM education, something I didn’t see or understand for far too many years. Now all my energy focuses on combatting these inequities.

Q: How does your TEDx Talk under the title “The Math People Myth” symbolize your work in (In)Equity in STEM?  

A: In my talk, I explore how math education contributes to educational inequity. The “math people” myth – the idea you’re either born a “math person” or you’re not – is a big part of the problem because it’s false and drives out students who don’t fit antiquated archetypes of “math people.” Another contributor is low empathy math environments. In higher education, courses like calculus are well-known “weed out” classes and this creates a cold, unsupportive learning environment. Particularly when combined with sexist, racist stereotypes about who is supposed to be good at mathematics. We all receive messages from schools, movies, and the media about who is ‘supposed’ to be good at math. Stereotypes are pervasive and set up false hierarchies: Asians are better at math than white people; white people are better at math than black and brown people; men are better at math than women. These stereotypes are like a nasty little virus. They infect you when you’re young without your knowledge or your consent. And when combined with low-empathy ecosystems and myths about innate math ability, educational inequity naturally follows.

Written by Rola Tarek Mohamed, CSHE Graduate Assistant, Lifelong Learning and Adult Education Doctoral Student

Q: You have been recognized as an advocacy agent, critically conscious school counselor, anti-racism-centered school counselor educator, and an overall culturally responsive educational leader by those you have served and partnered with. How does your background shape your gifts? 

A: Wow, I feel so honored by this recognition! I am so grateful to identify as a lifelong learner, be inspired by Black feminist activists and critical scholars/healers and have the career role of a School Counselor Educator, while collaborating with others who are committed to  dismantling systems of oppression. My lived experiences have shaped my positionality as a Black woman faculty member who is a community engaged scholar.  I am a product of a rural, Black, southern community who is a first-generation high school student. This experience has influenced my passion for education (former English teacher/school counselor and in higher education) and college/career readiness. Other aspects of my identity are also salient for me and heavily influence my practice, research, teaching, and service. Over time navigating social-political contexts as a Black woman, I had to develop a critical consciousness to understand the unique oppression we and others living/learning at the margins face. The works of bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Anna Julia Cooper, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Patricia Hills Collins- inform my positionality and how I show up/show out in spaces.

Q: It sounds like being aware of your own sense of being and identity brings forth an increased awareness of what is needed for the success of individuals, communities, and institutions you serve. What are your specific research interests? 

A: Yes, it does. My specific research interests include the influence of the intersections of race and gender for Black girls and women on their academic, personal/social, and career development; college and career readiness of historically marginalized groups; and culturally responsive and trauma-informed counseling. Also, using critical epistemologies in my scholarship allows me to better understand students’ of color personal, social, academic, and career success experiences and whether it is interrupted and/or enhanced by school, family, community settings, relationships, and policies throughout all stages of the educational pipeline. 

Q: You recently published an article in the flagship journal of the American School Counselor Association, Professional School Counseling, titled “Where I Can Be Myself”: Black Youth Narratives of Their Future Careers (Byrd et al., 2022). Please share more about this literature and how it informs your anti-oppressive approach to career development and critical research interests? 

A: It was a privilege to complete this study with other educators and counselors.  This empirical study centers on the career narratives of seven Black youth enrolled at an urban public school. We employed a narrative career theory intervention, “My Career Story” to learn more about what seventh graders envisioned for their future careers with regards to personal characteristics and spaces by connecting to stories they have read/saw in movies. We learned that even in 7th grade students were already socialized to understand they’d have to contend with barriers such as racism and broadly seek to be in places where they can be accepted as they are.  

We understand that school counselors are positioned as educational leaders to positively impact school culture and inform how youth navigate their critical awareness of the realities they face/will encounter. However, school counselors are also student-first advocates who can actively work in collaboration with others to decrease the barriers faced in educational and societal environments. Because a primary goal of educational settings in our capitalistic society is to prepare students to be positive contributors to the economic structures, the focus on the career development of students is a primary goal in our schools. The participants in this study through their narratives highlight the problem with concepts/educational practices that center meritocracy.  As the school counseling profession moves towards incorporating evidence-informed anti-racist practices in their day-to-day practices, narrative career theory approaches like “My Career Story” presents a tool they may use to aid students in developing a critical consciousness, providing space for them to authentically explore these thoughts/feelings, and to dream (i. e., think about their future). Anti-racist school counseling involves so much that is both challenging and rewarding. It is the ongoing belief that racism is present and plagued in all our societal systems, unlearning colonial ways of being, learning intersectional roots of racism and oppression, addressing one’s own racist behaviors and internalized oppression, challenging ways of thinking that feel normal, using critical theories to identify oppression, and actively engaging in always rooting out oppressive beliefs and policies, even within yourself.

Written by Nkenji Clarke, CSHE Graduate Assistant, Doctoral Student, Counselor Education and Supervision Program

Q: How would you say your critical approach shows up in the classroom and other teaching settings? 

A: After attending undergraduate studies in Hawaii, I was immersed in an experience learning about Native rights, colonialism, and sociopolitical activism. This has helped me to bring a critical and student-centered philosophy into my teaching, inviting students to direct their own learning, engage with questions of disparities in mental health, and keep equity and justice at the forefront of their practice. Additionally, as a Critically Conscious Counselor Educator who supervises counselors-in-training and doctoral students, I recommend the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies (MSJCC) to supervisees to give attention to power, privilege, and oppression and how they play out between counselors and clients. 

Q: Justice and social activism are central to your approach. How have you infused this into your research agenda? 

A: It certainly is. One of my current research topics is focused on the recruiting, retaining, and supporting both racially minoritized faculty and doctoral students in Counselor Education. Some of the evidence-based strategies include mentorship, connections to cultural identity, and personalized support. Continuing to have the support from the institutions I work in as it relates to my teaching and research has me excited and prepared to move forward. 

Q: A ‘Critically Conscious Counselor Educator’: can you tell us more about what this means, how it applies in your scholarship, and how it aligns with the need for more anti-oppressive practices in higher education? 

A: Yes, first I would like to highlight that identifying as a queer Latinx multiracial person using they/them pronouns and being involved in critical diversity and anti-oppression work for over a decade is not a choice. Being a critical race feminist counselor, educator, and supervisor, I am constantly aware of sociopolitical contexts and the demands of advocacy. This connects to my scholarship interests of mental health justice, equity-minded instructional design, critically conscious trauma informed care and the institutional experiences of racially minoritized educators. The college’s pledge to anti-racist education and practitioner education is connected to my advocacy work of dismantling oppressive institutional barriers for all educator success and the students they serve.

Written by Nkenji Clarke, CSHE Graduate Assistant, Doctoral Student, Counselor Education and Supervision Program

Q: What would you say are your primary research interests? 

A: I primarily work on social and racial inequalities with a focus on urban communities and schools to understand the variations in educational opportunities that are available to different racial and ethnic groups like U.S. born Latin a/o/x, African American, and Asian American youth and low-income immigrants. Rather than being reactive, my effort has always been to look for potential solutions by changing the underlying structures and sociocultural processes that create and sustain social problems of marginalized people. In doing so, I also focus on the successes rather than the failures. 

Q: What would you say are the key challenges to achieving racial and social justice in higher education?  

A: It seems that discourses on race and ethnicity invariably lead to more violence and racism. Trying to find solutions to pervading inequalities and discriminatory practices in higher education against underrepresented groups is challenging in itself. When efforts to counter these challenges only lead to increased xenophobia, homophobia, racism, and sexism, then it gets even more complicated. Besides, increasing tuition costs, student loans, and failure to retain students from minoritized communities only affirm rather than change the status quo. We continue to face and counter discourses and initiatives on social justice that fail to bring the desired changes. 

Another aspect I want to emphasize here is the limited understanding of how people’s perspectives are shaped by their racial identities. What people want to achieve, what they consider as inequality, and how they want to address inequalities are influenced by how they understand and make sense of race. These racial frames for understanding inequalities and privileges also contribute to racial projects. What do I mean by racial projects? Well, to put it simply, these are discourses, norms, and practices that shape beliefs about victimization, inequality, and injustice and influence ways of interacting with society.  Unfortunately, racial projects operate ubiquitously and underlie policies that create educational as well as social inequalities.

Q: Speaking of the Latina/o/x student population, what has your involvement and work on the special issues of the Journal of Leadership, Equity, and Research on Latina/o/x post-secondary education revealed about challenges and opportunities experienced by Latina/o/x students? 

A: Yes, the special issues, particularly, the second issue which presented the post-secondary educational context, was very insightful; the articles revealed that Latina/o/x students face multiple challenges that arise from lack of support structures, disregard for their ways of knowing and doing things, and continued use of individualistic and competitive practices. All these shortcomings point to the need for incorporating culturally relevant content and strategies. The special issue also highlighted the inadequacy of “race-neutral” educational policies in addressing inequalities.

Q: So, how can we change the status quo?  

A: The crux of the matter is that we must engage in social justice projects with intentionality. It is important that we question policies and services by centering the experiences of marginalized groups. We must consider the historical, social, political, and even local factors that shape access to education. We must also learn how to disrupt the preconceived notions about marginalized groups and celebrate different ways of knowing and doing. When students enroll in academic institutions, it is important to acknowledge their rights and the privileges in those institutions. Overall, Latina/o/x consciousness must inform all aspects of our service.  

Q: How does your research converge with the mission of CSHE?  

A: Like CSHE, I believe that research with diverse communities and for dismantling oppressive structural forces requires “collaborative vision.” Over the years I have realized that we cannot achieve racial and social justice without support from and partnership with various academic and community entities. As such, working along with other CSHE members, I want to question the decision-making processes lying behind educational policies and to seek ways to reduce oppression by looking for answers from within the social contexts.

Written by Nkenji Clarke, CSHE Graduate Assistant, Doctoral Student, Counselor Education and Supervision program

Q: We know that you have multiple interests, can you tell us about the ways you engage in your scholarship, and your research interests?    

A: I’ve been a professor in three different countries: South Africa, Egypt, and the United States. I am also a writer/author, poet, blogger, “twitterer”, podcaster, and entrepreneur.   

I‘m interested in the question of justice in education as it manifests in adult education, online education and distance education, education in Africa, and power dynamics in negotiating educational policy, among other things. Now, I am working on a “new theory” that I call ‘Cosmo-uBuntu’ (new to the modernist world of academia, but not the world per se to because it is a recalling of African ancestral wisdom).  

I consider my work to be scholarship-in-action, engaged with the world and communities. Through my work, I try to demonstrate my own stances that are anti-modernist and anti-colonial. Research is not only bound to universities, and I am interrogating more and more what is it to engage in research and to be a scholar, that is why I am engaging my other interests like poetry, because there can be a connection between spoken-word poetry and activism and scholarship which are all revolving around justice. Hence, I am including poetry into my scholarship without the need for a ‘scholarship/academic’ tag. This is scholar engagement, not performative, it is based on my scholarship and research and based in my interests of social justice, and justice in education. 

Q: What does Cosmo-uBuntu refer to and why is it important to you?  

 A: Cosmo-uBuntu is a framework founded on uBuntu, as an African philosophy that informs our understanding of human. uBuntu is articulated in the motto  ‘UMuntu nguMuntu ngaBantu’ (in Zulu), which literally means,” a person is a person because/unto/through/with fellow persons,” that is, we are human only through the humanity of fellow humans. In other words, the philosophy “uBuntu” is a doorway to our understanding of how our ancestors theorized about human existence. This is important because it presents an alternative (along with many other alternatives) to humanism, the hegemonic and universalist narrative about what it means to be “a human being.”  

My question is how Africans theorized about their reality outside of western theories. Hence, I had to go back to African history and culture, and encounters between Africans and the West before colonization. African reality is interconnected, we are all human beings, that’s why it is called Cosmo-ubuntu. It helps us see the interconnectedness and voluntary embracing of the basic African-derived way of viewing the world and offering explanations of reality, hence it makes us ask questions of reality and justice. We start to understand why injustice is still a question and is still happening, as our modernist frameworks are individualistic. That’s why we need to look at other theories outside of modernity and redefine what a citizen is, what is fair, and what is fairness. If humans are all Bantu, and western thinking looks at humans as hierarchically classifiable and structured, then our conceptions of fairness and justice need to change in order for us to have a different and better perception of justice in education. 

Q: How do you envision Cosmo-Ubuntu theorizing for justice in education?  

 A: My work is an attempt to re-call and re-articulate African ancestral wisdom and to emphasize the importance and possibilities of exterior to modernity theorizing, i.e., to learn from how non-Western people theorized and continue to theorize outside of Western/modernist theories. Cosmo-uBuntu is one such exterior to modernity theorizing that emerges in my engagement with African ancestral wisdom. I am not inventing a new theory; I am simply re-calling and re-articulating one way that our ancestors seem to have theorized. The sphere of justice and/in education are dominated by modernist/Western theories about justice that are based on a humanist perception of human, which bred injustice, and (such theories) maintain the status quo albeit promising justice. The vision is that we engage Cosmo-uBuntu as a non-modernist (alternative) theory based on a non-humanist perception of human and, consequently, of justice. And we all know that justice is a central issue in education. A Cosmo-uBuntu perspective can help researchers and practitioners become more proactive in their critical advocacy. 

Written by Rola Tarek Mohamed, CSHE Graduate Assistant, Doctoral Student, Lifelong Learning and Adult Education Program

Q: Congratulations on being recently awarded with the American Counseling Association Fellow Award, the American Counseling Association Extended Research Award and the Association of Counselor Education and Supervision Outstanding Mentor Award. For two-decades your award-winning scholarship has focused on school-family-community partnerships, a model for school counselors who are serving students experiencing inequities. Why do you believe this model is important in today’s education system? 

A: Thank you so much! I am still so passionate about school-family-community partnerships as a mainstay of my scholarship, knowing how important it is to equitably serve this new generation of students and increase educational access while closing opportunity gaps. My partnership model was inspired by my work in Barbados, where I grew up. That worked helped me to understand how systemic change occurs at the institutional level for students through strategic partnerships. Doing school counselor work both in Barbados and in the states, I was able to see how increasing equity in schools occurs in a collaborative space, really giving skill development to educational leaders. Witnessing the current education crisis exacerbated by COVID-19, it’s imperative that school counselors see themselves as leaders who are responsible to build partnerships with their school community to provide better resources for all students, particularly students of color and low-income students and maintain momentum.  

Q: You can see the needs in educational spaces and implement tools that help to develop community members and enhance the learning environment. What specific statistical tools have you created to measure school counselor leadership skills? 

A: A tool I developed, the School Counselor Leadership Survey (SCLS), has reached the national level within the school counseling profession. It supports a call to action for assessing the specific leadership skills of our profession and the survey results are used to build the leadership development of school counselors in training. First of its kind, the purpose of this tool was to help school counselors self-assess their leadership practices when serving all students, especially those experiencing inequities, and designing comprehensive school counseling programs, research, and professional development. We need valid and reliable statistical tools to foster positive changes in schools. In addition to SCLS, I have also developed a seven-step equity-focused partnership process model for counselors, educators, and youth workers which continues to focus on the equity, systemic collaboration, and social justice work we must be doing as educators to accomplish institutional goals across the education pipeline. 

Q: Would you say strategic collaboration is necessary in education even beyond K-12? How does it tie into your current work?

A: Yes, absolutely! My participation as a faculty research associate of the Center for the Study of Higher Education is a strategic collaboration, an interdisciplinary approach to advance equity, and anti-racist systemic change for all students, faculty, staff, and other school community members. Truly connected to my decades long work. Currently, I am testing a college access model, titled School Counseling College-Going Culture, and its effects on students’ college-going decisions. Connecting back to my homeland, I am studying international school counseling models in small island states like the Caribbean, especially in Barbados. 

Q: That is wonderful! Please share more about your current research projects? 

A: Ahh yes, it is so wonderful to give back and be working with school counselors in Barbados I have known for years. I was part of the first group of practitioners formally designated as ‘school counselors’ on the island, so it is a pleasure to partner with the Barbados Ministry of Education to build a comprehensive school counseling model that aligns with the culture. Through the College of Education’s Equity Leadership Fellowship, Penn State is also providing resources to allow me to focus on onboarding, supporting, and mentoring BIPOC faculty in the college. It feels good to see how partnerships in the school community benefit everyone involved.

Written by Nkenji Clarke, CSHE Graduate Assistant, Doctoral Student, Counselor Education and Supervision Program

 Q: You have been deeply entrenched in the work of affirming Black and Latinx lives, particularly women, and creating affirming spaces. How does your leadership and advocacy work connect to higher education? 

A: Proactively cultivating a sense of safety and community is imperative for all, but it is especially important for BIPOC given the history of this country. Creating affirming spaces for womxn of color emerged from my process of discovery and health and led to me building more opportunities for empowerment and racial healing work. Understanding the burdens and risks associated with white supremacy in higher education, my colleagues and I co-designed affinity groups and support structures, which evolved from support groups to the purposeful mentoring of youth. As a researcher, it is important for me to both engage in racial healing spaces and write about it. I am particularly passionate about providing tools to young people of color, to the folks who attend my workshops and consult with me, and to the audience who reads my research about navigating institutional racism. 

Q: It sounds like you seek to transform the education system by taking a social justice approach. How does the concept of equity show up in your teaching? 

A: Exactly! I am strongly interested in using research and teaching to protect the most vulnerable. As a trauma educator and professor, I have a critical responsibility to advocate and utilize a transformative approach in education that seeks to attend to the developmental needs of all my students. I hope that by engaging my students in a thoughtful learning process, using in and out-of-classroom activities, bringing in guest speakers and other community members, and welcoming productive conversation that is open and healing about racially oppressive systems, we as a community can work to lead transformative social justice-oriented action in education.  

Q: You see the value of community when attempting to create change in the education system. Please share more about how this has informed your research interests? 

A: I do. My main research emphasis is the examination of adolescent development within the context of close adult relationships, specifically identity development processes occurring within parental and teacher relationships. I explore risk and protective factors that impact the overall development of adolescents. This aligns with the work that I do as an educator. Racism negatively impacts the development of adolescents and, thus, seeking ways to promote racial healing is vital. This has led to my current research surrounding the benefits of trauma-informed and antiracist professional development programs for K-12 teachers and how it impacts the youth they teach. If all community members are learning anti-oppressive ways of being, then it can lead to more affirming spaces for students of color in the education system which impacts their social, emotional, and academic success.

Written by Nkenji Clarke, CSHE Graduate Assistant, Doctoral Student, Counselor Education and Supervision Program

Q: Your recent work highlights the role academic institutions play in fostering inclusion and engagement of minoritized students. Why do you think this is important? 

A: Yes, there are multiple funded projects that I am currently working on that focus on the retention, persistence, and career preparation of students in computing. If you look at the retention and graduation rates of students from structurally disadvantaged groups such as first-generation, low income, and minoritized students, especially in the computing disciplines, you will notice that the numbers fall far below that of their White peers. As a result, higher education institutions are experiences stagnant retention and graduation rates and growing educational disparities between structurally disadvantaged and traditionally advantaged student populations. 

To begin with, students from structurally disadvantaged populations are more likely to experience stereotype threat based on their social identities. If structurally disadvantaged students experience environments that question their ability based on their social identify, they begin to question whether they belong, lose motivation, and withdraw from the academic and social environment. Higher education institutions must recognize the role that the environment plays in students phycological experience and develop actionable strategies to address the underlying causes such as the social and psychological aspects of the student experience.  

My project funded by a seed grant from the Office of Research and Outreach at Penn State Harrisburg and the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence focuses on enhancing the retention, persistence, and success of structurally disadvantaged students in computing. To address these challenges, we leveraged an assets-based philosophy and approach that bridges theory and practice. Informed by the evidence base on interactionist theories of retention, theory of validation, and mindset culture, our first goal is to determine what is making it possible for structurally disadvantaged students to persist and excel in STEM education. Our second goal is to develop actionable strategies and faculty development interventions that intentionally create cultures of inclusion and equity in STEM classrooms.   

The project, as part of a broader research program, will give us an opportunity to investigate systemic inequities in student access, success, and career pathways that are pervasive and endemic to higher education. As such, the project will be devoted to identifying equity-focused and student-centered interventions for creating inclusive and equitable learning environments both within and outside the classroom. 

Q: What is the main aim of your NSF-funded project (congratulations for receiving the award!)?  

A: Thank you! I’m excited to be serving a Co-Pi on an NSF Broadening the Participation in Computing grant. The NSF-funded project is a major initiative to examine and address the inequities that persist in the academia despite academic institutions’ efforts to broaden participation of women, Black, and Hispanic/Latinx students who are underrepresented in STEM, technology, and computing fields.  The aims of the project are twofold.  First, we will create first-year learning experiences reflective of the knowledge and skills of minoritized students.  Second, we will implement and assess two scalable and reproducible faculty development interventions that consider intersectionality and facilitate modifications to curriculum and instructional practices to bolster students’ persistence.  

Q: What do you hope to achieve from these projects? 

A: Unfortunately, too many initiatives have taken a deficit minded approach aimed at fixing the students. Unless institutions realize that minoritized students bring unique assets and include their voices and the experiences in developing curriculum or in tailoring their classroom environments, inequities will continue to hinder learning, participation, and persistence of these groups. Indeed, existing deficit approaches to curricular and co-curricular experiences further lead to the minoritized students falling behind their peers. So, focusing on the role higher education institutions play in perpetuating inequities through policies, practices, and procedures is necessary to disrupt the status quo. 

Written by Sharmistha Barat, CSHE Graduate Assistant, Doctoral Student, Lifelong learning and Adult Education Program

Q: What are your research interests and aspects of your identity that inform your scholarship?   

A: I identify as an artist, poet and scholar. My work draws on Black critical and feminist theories to advance research on student development theory; racialized trauma and stress; and anti-racist curriculum and pedagogies, to name a few.  

Q: One of your recent works, “Loving Flesh: Self-Love, Student Development Theory, and the Coloniality of Being,” which appears in the Journal for College Student Development, explores the role of “Self-Love” in student development theory in contexts of coloniality. How do you define Self-Love and why is it important for anti-racist engagement?  

 A: In my article, I conceptualize Self-Love drawing on several definitions by scholars such as hooks, Fanon, Dumas, and Baszile. As bell hooks taught us, the only way to intervene on embodied trauma resulting from coloniality and the ongoing project of anti-Blackness is to prioritize self-love. Jennifer Nash says that self-love comes from working on yourself and getting ready for the work of social engagement and the job of fighting for the sustenance and fulfillment of a group of people. Therefore, as Baszile pointed out, self-love is a way to fight against spirit murder. It draws on the resilience legacy of Black people to keep going despite being mistreated, under-represented, and invisible for much of their lives. 

Q: How do you think this can be applied on the context of the experiences of black students in higher education?  

 A: In my article, I talk about how higher education is an extension of white supremacy that has its roots in colonization. Building on Baby Suggs’s call to “love your flesh,” I looked at how Black students “love their flesh” and the ways that Black works of literature can instigate onto-epistemological growth and alter the colonization scripts in the lives and understanding of Black students. 

Following in the footsteps of what bell hooks referred to as “loving Blackness,” I argue that we can upend the coloniality ingrained in higher education by identifying Black self-hatred and its origins as a production of white supremacy. To resist it, one needs to engage in self-love, decolonial efforts, and raising critical consciousness.

Written by Rola Tarek Mohamed, CSHE Graduate Assistant, Doctoral Student, Lifelong learning and Adult Education Program

Q: Can you tell us more about the results of one of your latest studies, which examines short-term retention in a STEM Intervention Program (SIP)?    

A: The study is titled “Understanding Who Stays in a STEM Scholar Program for Underrepresented Students: High-Achieving Scholars and Short-Term Program Retention” published in Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice (Oseguera, et.al, 2020). This study is one of the first to examine the relationship between STEM engagement dispositions and short-term retention in a program designed to increase the representation of underrepresented students in STEM fields. Our results suggest that identifying as a woman or gender non-conforming scholar, having a strong scientific identity, or reporting lower depressive symptoms, all increase the likelihood of remaining in the program. 

Q: What are the implications of this study on the retention of underrepresented minority students in STEM higher education programs?  

 A: A finding that jumps out, first, shows that in large, mostly White, public research institutions, STEM courses are often taught in large classrooms underrepresented minority students end up feeling isolated. This makes highly qualified students switch to majors that don’t involve science, technology, engineering, or math. We saw the importance for women in these competitive environments of interpersonal and collaborative relationships. It looks like the program being studied is working to keep undergraduate students interested. Support from the school, especially for these students, can help them adjust and do well.   

One of the most important things we learned from this study is that, in all our models, students had much higher odds of staying in the STEM Scholar Program (SSP), which suggests that students take advantage of these kinds of chances. Beyond that, our results also show that if you want to keep more students in a program, you should pay attention to their well-being. This finding shows how important it is to include measures of countering depression and well-being when looking at high-achieving college students in STEM fields. Even though this is an issue that people care about, not enough research has been done on it. Not much is known about how mental health issues affect students in highly competitive majors.

Q: Those are really important findings! Were there other results from your study that surprised you? 

A: Even though the SSP program is very hard, it seems that students are more willing to put in their time and effort when they are in an environment that is both hard and supportive. It makes you wonder if men have already been taught to believe that they can be successful, since many college STEM environments are still dominated by men and promote male perspectives. These results show that practitioners and institutions need to create and use intervention programs and other types of support for students in STEM. The programming for these should go beyond the traditional parts of academic support and include parts about well-being as well. 

Written by Rola Tarek Mohamed, CSHE Graduate Assistant, Doctoral Student, Lifelong learning and Adult Education Program

Q: You have a passion for disrupting policies, procedures, and practices to better serve educational communities. How has your research on identity and education aligned with your other works? 

A: I am trained in Quantitative Research, Evaluation, and Measurement and in Critical Approaches in Qualitative Inquiry, which certainly provides me with a multi-focal lens as a researcher. My research interests employ an intersectional approach to considering how identity and education interact. Understanding that race and other systemic factors influence student identities and how they engage with learners’ experiences, it is important to me to take up a critical lens in both my teaching and research. Especially so as I work to serve the needs of children, young adults, and adult learners, constantly seeking ways to deconstruct inequities woven into the US’s existing public school system and structure. As I stated earlier, my works, my roles, my positions, all the pieces go together.

Q: Your critical engagement includes advocating on several professional, university, and community committees and being an activist with the D.C Social Justice Initiative. How do these significant projects inform your leadership work in higher education? 

A: My leadership identity as an educator is justice-oriented and that informs the learning environments I create with my students and colleagues. Working in both K-12 and higher education has shown me that learning environments thrive best when there are partnerships with community members whose values align. Understanding that this is a core need when training students to tackle systemic racism and inequity, colleagues in the Office of Education and Social Equity and I facilitate the D.C Social Justice Fellowship and other initiatives that support students of color. It provides service opportunities across state lines and for folks to raise their critical consciousness.

Q: Congratulations, since joining Penn State’s Curriculum and Instruction team in Fall 2015 you have co-collaborated to put into place the newly established Social Justice in Education minor and were awarded the College of Education’s Cotterill Leadership Enhancement Award. How does this academic initiative connect to your teaching identity? 

A: Thank you so much! All the passion I give for my various roles as an educator is because I cannot separate myself out of each position, it is all part of me. The teacher part of me, the mom part of me, the Black woman part of me – all these pieces go together. Everything I do is from love, and it is important that I impart upon my students to approach the profession, enter the classroom, and support students from all backgrounds through the act of love. The very action of social justice is steeped in the verb of love because awareness of diversity, inclusion and equity is not enough, we must enact these ideals. My dedication to being an educator has led to addressing the teacher training gap specifically through collaborating with my colleague Dr. Efraín Marimón to pair knowledge and action.

Written by Nkenji Clarke, CSHE Graduate Assistant, Doctoral Student, Counselor Education and Supervision Program

Q: You hold the legacy of service, leadership, and the commitment of uplifting your community close to your heart. How do your values connect to your advocacy work in higher education and beyond? 

A: I certainly do. I am thankful for mentors and family who have instilled those values in me, which I have continued to carry across my educational career. It has inspired which communities I am committed to advocating for and the leadership roles I decide to conduct service in. Reflecting on my previous work as a community organizer in my home city of Chicago and my current role as an Assistant Professor conducting research on sexual assault on campuses, I believe that a safer world must be achieved through equity-focused action. 

Q: Tell us more about what informs your theoretical lens and how you approach the work of supporting sexual harassment and assault survivors. 

A: In combination with legal theories, I lean into the theoretical framework of intersectionality. The term was coined by Legal Scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw describing the unique challenges of racism and sexism Black women experience due to the compounding systems of oppression. Other forms of oppression are experienced by this community based on other interlocking identities as well. Identifying as a Black woman, my educational journey is informed by my identities and work to bridge research and practice gaps. Intersectionality, in this context, is a tool to highlight how university policies and practices are not geared to create safe spaces for Black women and non-binary students, ignoring and intensifying sexual violence against them. Understanding that members of multiple groups with different identities are being oppressed, this equity work needs multiple folks and entities to collaborate with. Joining Penn State as faculty and research center member provides me access to engage in partnerships committed to equity and anti-racism in research, teaching, and policy advocacy related to my core interest of sexual assault on campuses.

Q: It sounds like equity-focused action in higher education must include the understanding of interconnected systems of oppression. How has this advanced your current research? 

A: It must. I emphasize this in my recent article ‘Gender Equity and Due Process in Campus Sexual Assault Adjudication Procedures’ published in the flagship journal of The Journal of Higher Education. My research team and I conducted a study using a systematic analysis of adjudication policies to assess the extent to which policies protected the due process rights of students accused of sexual assault and the rights of students alleging harm on campuses. Our research highlighted how due process rights were protected through models that incorporated hearings after Title IX investigations, opportunities to respond to evidence in investigatory models, and the wide-spread availability of appeals processes. We also show a significant number of U.S colleges and universities do not meet Title IX legal obligations. Unfortunately, during the former outgoing presidential administration, several regulations were rolled back which led to the implementation of procedures that negatively impacted the protection of survivors in an education system that already needed to advance gender equity. My current research explores how Black women, nonbinary individuals, and other marginalized students experience campus sexual assault and adjudication processes before and after the 2020 regulations were enacted to understand how, and to what extent, gender equity efforts have been curtailed.

Written by Nkenji Clarke, CSHE Graduate Assistant, Doctoral Student, Counselor Education and Supervision Program

Q: Dr. Soto, a growing part of your research is focused on how experiences of discrimination and racism affects mental health; how did your experiences inform this interest?  

A: For me, these interests are rooted in growing up and existing in a context where I have seen so many people of color, and others with other marginalized identities, repeatedly suffer from minor and major hassles as a result of bias, prejudice, and institutional-level barriers that across their lives have made it hard for them to attain the same kinds of care and service that members of the majority may not have to deal with. Over time, these setbacks and challenges take a toll on one’s psychological health and my work has recently been attempting to demonstrate the various ways in which racism/oppression/discrimination play out for marginalized individuals and how these processes may lead to poorer health and functioning.

Q: In your study with NanaA. Dawson-Andoha and Rhonda BeLue, you draw on the relationship between racial discrimination and mental health, how do you conceptualize ‘perceived racial discrimination’ and what is the significance of this study? 

A: The study titled “The relationship between perceived discrimination and Generalized Anxiety Disorder among African Americans, Afro Caribbeans, and non-Hispanic Whites” that is published in the “Journal of Anxiety Disorders” builds on the increased interest in how racial discrimination (among other social factors) is to blame for the difference in health between African Americans and European Americans in the U.S.  

However, the correlation between certain mental health conditions and the experience of racial discrimination among African Americans has not been studied as extensively as it should be. Few studies have looked at this connection, and those that have mostly study populations that are not African American. The impact of racial discrimination on certain mental health problems, specifically Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), is still not fully known, despite the increasing attention that prejudice and discrimination has earned as a risk factor for health and psychological consequences over the last two decades. 

 In the study, we conceptualize perceived racial discrimination as instances where people believed or felt that others were viewing them or treating them negatively because of their race. Previous studies have shown that perceiving discrimination (e.g., believing you were passed over for a promotion due to race) is equally detrimental to the individual as experiences of other forms of discrimination that may be more explicit/overt and therefore considered more ‘objective’ instances of discrimination (e.g., being called a racial slur).

Written by Rola Tarek Mohamad, CSHE Graduate Assistant, Doctoral Student, Lifelong learning and Adult

Q: In your research you’re committed to social justice; how did your background shape this interest?In particular, how do your experiences inform your studies of race-conscious admissions?  

A: My personal experiences as a student and administrator in a U.S. based traditionally white law school informs my interest in race-conscious admissions.  Upon entering my first year of law school, my class was touted as being one of the most racially diverse: it was about 14 of us total. I also engaged in conversations with white peers who viewed the use of race as a factor in law school admissions as reverse discrimination. When the U.S. Supreme Court heard the University of Michigan cases in 2003, I was in my last year of law school and the president of the Black Law Student Association (BLSA). Along with the Latina woman president of the Hispanic Law Society (HLS) we co-organized a trip to Washington, D.C. to allow students to show support for the University of Michigan admissions processes especially for the law school. I did not think that after writing my dissertation on the oral arguments for Bakke, Gratz, Grutter, and both Fisher cases about race-conscious admissions, the U.S. Supreme Court would still be entertaining cases, but the debate continues and so does my work of illuminating the innate inequities in how societal and legal discourse frames race-conscious admissions.

Q: Your recent article published in International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education is titled “Radical affirmative action: a call to address hegemonic racialized themes in U.S. higher education race-conscious admissions legal discourse.” Can you share with us more about it, and how it relates to the current Supreme Court hearings challenging Affirmative Action at Harvard and U.N.C.? 

A: In this article, I explore how U.S higher institutions’ admissions practices are rooted in a white supremacist logic that co-opts civil rights goals intended to achieve racial equity in education. Progressive initiatives to incorporate People of Color who have been denied access to higher education are challenged with baseless claims of reverse discrimination by white applicants and, most recently, Asian Americans. Opponents of race-conscious admissions disagree with the relevance and need for affirmative action in post-secondary admissions with arguments that since blatant exclusion based on race is no longer legal, we now live in a post-racist society therefore race should not be accounted for in admissions.

Q: How do you think ‘Radical Affirmative Action’advocates for anti-racism in higher education, as you argue in your article?

 A: In this article I reach the conclusion that race-neutral conversations about U.S. higher education admissions undermine the opportunity to use affirmative action as one tool to address historical and contemporary racial inequities. The history and reality of racism are still present and have ongoing effects. White privilege and its logics stymie racial equity. 

 Also, many mission of U.S. institutions of higher education include content about racial equity, inclusion, and belonging. Yet, institutional leaders sometimes espouse these goals without demonstrating a clear and unapologetic commitment to racially diversifying the student body by supporting race-conscious admissions. Applicants with wealth, such as the BlueChip incident, can usurp the admissions processes but do not gain much media attention to explore those situations. Proponents of race-conscious admissions should be vigilant in debunking myths about race-conscious admissions and inviting people to revisit constructs like meritocracy. The idea of meritocracy is so ingrained in the U.S. that conversations about it being flawed are difficult because some people want to focus on reverse racism which does not exist. My scholarship characterizing ‘radical affirmative action’ extends the work of critical race theory scholars by re-centering race, racism, and white supremacy back at the center of U.S. higher education.

Written by Rola Tarek Mohamed, CSHE Graduate Assistant, Doctoral Student, Lifelong learning and Adult Education Program