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4. Lived Experiences and Other Ways of Knowing in STEMM The previous chapters presented evidence on a range of historical and present-day policies, practices, and data collection that have influenced the participation and success of systemically minoritized racial and ethnic groups in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) careers and organizations. Per the committeeâs statement of task, this chapter provides evidence from the lived experience and other crucial sources of information beyond traditional quantitative methods. The goal of the chapter is to provide a firsthand account of some of the challenges Black scholars encounter as they navigate in STEMM organizations. The interviews underscore the complex range of experiences, emotions, and situations that confront even the most successful Black scholars. This chapter also provides concrete examples of how the issues identified throughout this report are manifest on a personal level through the voices of successful Black scholars in STEMM. While the interviews were structured, they were not intended to qualify as a true qualitative study. As such, the committee does not provide specific conclusions or recommendations associated with this chapter beyond an acknowledgment of the value of soliciting more voices to deepen our understanding of the lived experience of Black people and other systematically marginalized groups in STEMM organizations. There is growing recognition and an emerging evidence base that acknowledges the importance of documenting the lived experience in various fields and disciplines, including education (Orbe, 2008; San Miguel and Kim, 2015), obesity (Farrell et al., 2021a; Farrell et al., 2021b), mental health (Kaite, 2015), and substance use (Alexandridis et al., 2020). One recent report on effective mentorship in STEMM points to a body of evidence that demonstrates how understanding studentsâ lived experiences can improve the mentoring that faculty members provide (NASEM, 2019). Another recent review highlights a range of federal agencies and initiatives that have incorporated the lived experience into their research, policies, and practices, and identifies emerging strategies that may be adopted more broadly (ASPE, 2021). Finally, the 4-1 Pre-Publication Copy, Uncorrected Proofs
prioritization of personal knowledge and firsthand accounts that produce complementary evidence when the published research is lacking in such perspectives can be seen in numerous recent National Academies activities. 1 In this context, the chapter begins with excerpts from a series of structured interviews with members of the National Academies Roundtable on Black Men and Black Women in STEMM and other members of the National Academies who identify as Black or African American that highlight the lived experience of Black people involved in STEMM and concludes with the discussion of the nature of evidence. INTERVIEWS: LIVED EXPERIENCES OF BLACK STEMM PROFESSIONALS To capture the lived experience and to provide a supplemental evidence base to the data presented in elsewhere in this report, the committee conducted a series of structured interviews with Black individuals with careers in STEMM. The STEMM professionals who were interviewed have reached elite levels of contribution in their respective fields. The interview excerpts that follow are not intended as generalizable data; rather, they provide authentic and vivid examples of lived experience. The committeeâs approach, approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the National Academies, is documented in Appendix C. It includes a detailed description of the methods used to conduct these interviews, as well as the interview script. Briefly, a total of 29 interviews were conducted with Black professionals, many of whom are members of the National Academies Roundtable on Black Men and Black Women in STEMM, a group of individuals who have achieved outstanding records, proved themselves in the face of racial bias, are recognized by their colleagues, and are known for their success. Other interviewees included members of the National Academies who identify as Black or African American. As such, the interviews do not include the perspectives of professionals who have not yet reached âeliteâ status, people who left STEMM, those who are now beginning their careers in STEMM, and STEMM professionals from other minoritized groups. As noted in Chapter 1, the committee elected to focus on the challenges facing Black Americans in STEMM, recognizing that while Examples include The Lived Experience Innovation Collaborative; Responding to the Current Youth 1 Mental Health Crisis and Preventing the Next One; Communities, Climate Change, and Health Equity: A New Vision; and Review of Federal Policies that Contribute to Racial and Ethnic Health Inequities. 4-2 Pre-Publication Copy, Uncorrected Proofs
there may be some shared experiences, sociocultural factors differ for different minoritized groups and individuals, precluding a one-size-fits-all approach. As such, the committee believes that conducting similar interviews with members of other minoritized groups will yield different and valuable additional evidence. Thus, the structured interviews in this chapter also serve as a guide for future work and demonstrate the need for additional research that investigates the unique racialized issues facing other minoritized groups in the research agenda. Really, the more and more we could share the stories of individuals and then the challenges that they have faced and then how they have overcome them .... Storytelling is very powerful. Because a lot of times individuals are just not aware of the challenges when it comes to diverse individuals, because they never had to think about it. [Interviewer O.A. 06-03-22 RT Interview pg. 11] Black peopleâIâm preaching to the choir in a lot of waysâBlack people are not monolithic. There are so many pieces of us and whatever our experiences are; it's helpful to not measure them against the otherâ¦Everyoneâs experience is so valuable no matterâ¦what the road they've traveled⦠I think intersections are so important in people of color and anyone really. I would say people of color, especially givenâ¦the challenges that weâve consciously experienced and unconsciously experiencedâ¦the intersections I think are really important because we are multifaceted, and we can bring our subjugated selves: I could bring it as Black; I could bring it as gay; and all those things mount up. [Interviewer L.M. 06-14-22 RT Interview 2 p.12] The rest of this section is organized by the subject matter of the interview comments. 2 These include experiences of belonging (or not), specific biased or racist incidents, sources of support from others (mentors, peers, family, community), and their own sources of resilience (determination, confidence). These lived experiences emerged as reported in particular contexts, in response to open-ended questions, but with full knowledge of their intended audience. They are a communication (Converse & Shuman, 1974) so they might aim to conform to conversational norms, to persuade, to self-promote, to self-deprecate, to promote a mentor, or to shock. I think that capturing the lived experiences and the rich description of those experiences is critical, and that it should be evaluated or valued as much as some sort of nondescript, and impersonal literature that might be out there as well, that ⦠this is just as important, if not more important, than the other elements of the report. [Interviewer O.A. 05-26-22 Pilot Interview pg. 14] 2 The quotations have been lightly edited to remove ordinary conversational disfluencies: repeated words, âyou know,â âI mean,â and the like, retaining the original meaning. No words have been added. The initials in the brackets refer to the interviewer, not the person being interviewed. 4-3 Pre-Publication Copy, Uncorrected Proofs
Belonging Interview participants were asked about the extent to which they felt that they belonged and supported in their respective field of study and expertise. 3 And so was my first experience stepping into an environment where â¦students didn't necessarily all look like me and certainly not the faculty ... there was no critical mass of scholars of color. And that was, I will admit, when I first arrived, it was a bit unnerving because I did not feel ⦠the opportunity for any kind of sense of belonging or sense of someone else who could recognize my identity, someone who would be able to affirm my identity as a young Black woman. [Interviewer Y.A. 06-10-22 Pilot Interview pg. 2] And so my initial reaction was, â¦. do I really belong here, but that really just lasted for a little while, until ⦠I got the hang of it and realized that not only was I competing from an academic standpoint, but because of my personal experiences, I felt that I actually had an edge. [Interviewer J.N.B. 05-17-22 Pilot pg. 2] There were very few moments when I didnât realize I was one of the few Black students in a majority White institution... This was... the early â70s. The civil rights movement was still going on. ⦠You knew there were communities you just donât go in. That was a sense of the White students that I was in class with. They didnât get it. It was a sense of being separate from the majority of my classmates. [Interviewer L.M. 6-14-2022 RT p. 3-4] But certainly, [REDACTED] in particular is an extremely, not only male dominated, very conservative professionâ¦so it was challenging because many of us were the first or the only in [REDACTED]. I think I was the second person ever to train at the [PWI 1]. And then I was the first person ever on the faculty there and so on. And, with that come a lot of challenges ⦠you donât fit the mold that people are used to. [Interviewer L.M. 06-16-22 GM p.1] My experience as an African American in [FIELD REDACTED] has been often, I was the only one of many quite often, through grad school, postdoc, and even in industryâ¦. I got used to being the only African American quite often. But overall, I did feel as part of the community. I never felt as if I was an outsider. I think I must have made good relationships with my majority colleagues that I still felt, as a [scientist], one of them. [Interviewer O.A. 06-03-22 RT Interview pg. 2] Now thinking back, back when I went to grad school, actually, I do remember the first semester. I did not feel as if âI belongââjust because when I reached out to some fellow colleagues, they really weren't receptive to me, but then I realized, I just had to find individuals who had a passion outside of [REDACTED] science. And then I found that in basketball. So, I did find other grad students that love sports like I did; therefore they became my community. So, in that sense, â¦honestly, you have to maybe identify another way of connecting with individuals and therefore, you may not belong in one way, but you can find that commonality, and therefore you can build relationships that can then expand beyond your initial things that you had in common with them. [Interviewer O.A. 06-03-22 RT Interview pg. 2] Your colleagues didnât really care about you or to show you what they are showing others, and you stumble through things. And I still remember my first mistake of doing something wrongâ¦. And instead of telling me how to correct it, it was used as a more punitive approach to maybe we won't allow you to do this anymore, to touch anything anymoreâ¦. 3 Chapter 5 includes additional evidence related to the concept of belonging. 4-4 Pre-Publication Copy, Uncorrected Proofs
Iâm a PI [principal investigator], I have to place my own order. I had nobody else. My lab was new. So, I wrote my purchase items I needed to order, took it to the purchasing officer, and the lady looked at me and said, give it to your supervisor to sign. Automatically she assumed I wasnât a PI, but in fairness to her, I was the first PI really, on the investigator track in that department. So, it was directly, she gave it back to me right away, asked me to give it to my PI to sign. I could have reacted violently. I could have really started screaming on top of my voice, but instead what I told her was where do you want my PI to sign? And she said, where you signed. And I took a pen on the desk, signed over my signature, left it for her and walked away. And that really transformed her even until the time I left for my institution. It was transformative for her. I don't think she realized what she did until I signed over my signature. It was the first time she said, oh my God, heâs a PI. And ⦠throughout my stay there, she was a different person; never looked at people the same way again, made sure that I got anything I wanted along the way. So thatâs the way I dealt with that experienceâ¦. We are putting a big grant together, and I was asked to lead one of the development projects because I was a very young investigator, a junior investigator. Then I wrote my whole proposal, and he decided, let me tell you, grantsmanship is a little tricky. We will use somebodyâs name as a PI for the development project so that when it gets funded, you'll still have the money, but we just want to make sure that this whole thing goes through without any hitch. And I said, wow, if you think Iâm not good enough to be a PI on a development project, I don't need to be part of it. Right. And the irony is that that project scored one of the best scores ever in the whole programâ¦. You are very good as long as you are not a threat to any other personâs position. And so while those much higher than you would be happy because⦠they use all your work to praise themselves. Your colleagues that want similar positions or the next level position, really â¦lack collaboration with what youâre doing. And I see that everywhere that even at my level right now, I expect a lot of resistance initially until I prove myself again. [Interviewer Y.A. 07-15-22 GM Interview] Racism and Racial Microaggressions Although interview participants were not specifically asked if they experienced racism or racist incidences, general questions about belonging and support (and likely the overall subject of the committeeâs work) elicited a number of examples. I always said that [grad] school was like A Tale of Two Cities: âIt was the best of times. It was the worst of times.â It depends on who you were. If you were White, it was the best of times all the time, and they just answer all my questions, and they invite me over to the house and go meet me at the bar, and for Black students, I canât get a professor to talk to me; when they [professors] talk to me they talk down to me. I donât belong here. Iâm supposed to figure all this out and the White students are getting old tests from somewhere that I donât ever get to see. Iâm supposed to perform at the same level as them. [Interviewer L.M. 5-24-2022 RT p. 1] So, in that first academic position . . . some senior people made it clear to me that, well, maybe I don't really belong there . . . I worked very hard, but some of them actually went out of their ways to complain that I was publishing too many papers that it must be that the quality is not good. Even though it is the same places, the same journals that they too publish in... it was largely maybe out of jealousy that some of them did this, but... as the lone Black face there, sadly, you don't feel good when people are constantly trying to put you down even though you are externally getting some recognition. I saw that more as them trying to compete with me and then maybe also trying to show that maybe I'm not as good as it appears that I was. [Interviewer L.M. 06-30-22 GM p. 5] 4-5 Pre-Publication Copy, Uncorrected Proofs
Not infrequently, White folks will say youâre just being too sensitive. But when you have a Black colleague, you can share the experience and say I had the same thing or hereâs something you can try. It obviously led to a more supportive environment when you knew the person you were talking to about the obstacle youâre dealing with, understood the role that race plays in our society. [Interviewer L.M. 6-14-2022 RT p. 9] I was gone for eight months, and while I was over there: in an email, it comes across the book has been â¦accepted and the whole list of authors. And I tell you, it was every single person in our department, except me, [REDACTED] the people who are doingâ¦, any kind of work in our department, every single person in the department, except me, had been included as an author. And when I saw that, ⦠I felt like a horse had kicked me in the chest⦠that kind of exclusion. [Interviewer Y.A. 07-22-22 RT Interview pg. 3] â¦. But I didnât really understand what we were supposed to do. So, I went to the professor and instead of helping me, she says, well, Iâm not going to do your homework for youâ¦. I wasnât asking her to do that. And so thatâs where I understood that some professors would interpret my questions at a low level of sophistication, as opposed to a high level of sophistication, which is often a problem for Black and other racialized students. Thatâs especially true in medical school, even now, when thereâs some students of color when youâre on the rounds. And when you finally get in the clinical spaces, a lot of people are jockeying for the attention of the attending physician. And if you ask a question and then the attending treats it as if it was a stupid question, but then somebody else asks what really could be a stupid question, but then they can see, and it, oh, the brilliance of it. And they, they differentially respond to questions from different people. It could make people of color stop asking questions, which means they donât get their questions answered. And then they also donât look smarter, engaged or whatever. So, this whole thing of people who are judging you, responding to your questions at a low level of sophistication, as opposed to a high level of sophistication because of your so- called race is a real problem at all levels of education. [Interviewer Y.A. 07-22-22 RT Interview pg. 10] ⦠racism, itâs a tough thing, tough issue... even in this yearânot directed to me personally, but even on our campus within science and engineering buildings, I mean, there have been a number of incidents where students who were legitimately supposed to be inside buildings and people called police on them. And these are students trying to do research and mind their own business... you see that and, wow this is still going on. Something that I thought yeah, I shouldnât have to see that again, and itâs happening. [Interviewer L.M. 06-30-22 GM p. 6] Experiences at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Predominantly White Institutions Interviewees were asked questions about their experiences with training at the institutions they attended and in their fields of study over the course of their careers. Some of the interview participants described their experiences at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) while others described their experiences at Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). 4 So, at a [PWI 1] research team, it was great because we were all with a new professor. So we all were doing this science together. We were all learning. He was learning how to be a professor. We were learning how to be grad students. So it was that we had that commonality. So that was great. So then when I did my postdoc, it was a little different and I was, went to a senior like his PI in the field. I had a pretty large team actually. We think we had 50 4 Chapter 2 includes additional evidence related to HBCUs. 4-6 Pre-Publication Copy, Uncorrected Proofs
individuals in one lab, probably 25 postdocs, 25 grad students. So that's where I really had to learn how to work with others. Although youâre really not on the same team, but we had to share space, share ideas. You had to learn to work with people that thought they were smarter than you. So that's how it really got approached. Like, wow, okay. You were, youâre pretty good at what you do, [NAME REDACTED] in [REDACTED], and you can still be yourself and still compete with people that are, you know, overly confident; I should say. [O.A. 06-03- 22 RT Interview pg.6] When you come from a predominantly African American college undergraduate where you had just a lot of support, a lot of friendships... and then all of a sudden, I arrive on campus at [PWI] where you could go pretty much half a day/all day without seeing anyone who looked like you. I would describe at least initially my experience there as being a bit lonely because I was so used to people being warm and genuine and friendly. [Interviewer L.M. 5-12-22 Pilot p. 4] A lot of times I think Whites are reluctant to provide honest feedback to us either because they think they are going to hurt feelings or they donât know if thereâs going to be any kind of a backlash. Iâve come out of meetings where my presentation was okay but I didnât think it was great. Iâll ask one of my White counterparts, how do you think it went. âThat was great.â I knew it wasnât great. We have to make sure that weâre not getting lulled into everything is fine because people arenât being genuine and authentic with us. [Interviewer L.M. 5-12-22 Pilot p. 13] I was fortunate. I went to an HBCU. I didnât have the challenge of looking around and not seeing anyone like me. I saw so many beautiful, incredibly talented people who I was surrounded with. I had an amazing experience in undergrad in STEM. [Interviewer L.M. 5-12- 22 Pilot p. 4] Well you know, at [HBCU 1], you know, was returning to [HBCU 1] was easy because it was like returning home. And so the challenges that one may experience as this person of color going to a PWI were different. [Interviewer Y.A. 06-10-22 Pilot Interview pg. 5] Yeah, I think a lot of that has to do with going to [grad] school at [HBCU1] and training at [HBCU1]. It instilled confidence in my abilities and having been around people who were supportive of abilities. I think it gives you a certain sense of confidence that you can certainly take elsewhere. And so that I would say is part of what would've built up. I would say that the characteristic of resilience came from starting off with a foundation of confidence. [Interviewer Y.A. 06-30-22 RT Interview 1 pg. 2] In some instances the whole HBCU versus a Big 10, and somehow the world has given weight to those, as one being more than the other. Again, I feel like thatâs mainstream that has defined that. [Interviewer L.M. 06-14-22 RT Interview 2 p. 12] I went on to an HBCU. And largely because of the high school that I went to was, though diverse, it was largely White. And so I just wanted to experience something where we were the majority. And it was a great experience. And I learned a lot. I learned a lot of history that I donât necessarily think, in that time, I wouldâve learned elsewhere. And so it was a pretty nurturing environment and affirming in a lot of ways. [Interviewer L.M. 06-14-22 RT Interview 2 p. 6] 4-7 Pre-Publication Copy, Uncorrected Proofs
Mentors, Ingroups, and Outgroups Some interview participants underscored the importance of having knowledgeable guides during their education and professional pursuits. The committee revisits the subject of mentors in Chapters 7, 8, and 9. The advice I always give out is basically, you need to have mentors. You need to have as many mentors as you can possibly find. I have a lot of mentors. My mentors have been with me for a very long time...And it's just really important. You cannot do this work without mentors. It's just people - it's not really possible to do it alone. ... And so having mentors is absolutely crucial. You need peer mentors, that is people in your same stage of life and doing what you're doing at that time. And you have people older than you. And subsequently I think as a teacher, I have, but some of my graduate students mentor me, they teach me things that I don't know. And so I do think that the key is really about mentoring. [Interviewer J.B. 06-08-22 RT Interview, pg. 9-10] I've had the privilege of having Black people as mentors, advisors, sponsors throughout the course though, and it's been different at different stages in my, but it has absolutely been seeing them in those leadership roles that has made me believe that, you know, that it is attainable. [Interviewer L.M. 06-14-22 RT Interview 2 p.11] Early in my career, of course, there weren't mentors who looked like me, but there were people who were willing to take me under their wing and mentor and support and advocate for me, that really took my career off, all older White men. So that was great. [Interviewer Y.A. 06-02- 22 RT Interview pg.3] And I had a few White male champions, one of whom became my main advisor, who I had met because I was in a summer program, the [REDACTED] summer research program for minorities and women...And he is still a mentor of mine. He will still call me up and see how I'm doing and see if he can help in any way with my career. So the importance for me, mentors were absolutely important for graduate school. [Interviewer J.B. 06-08-22 RT Interview, pg.6] â¦. also mentorsâ¦, I had certain people I could reach out to and ask, âHey, this is what I'm experiencing, what do you think? How should I understand this experience? How do I make sense of this? To what should you attribute this?â And sometimes they called a spade, a spade: this is racism. ⦠Or that I interpreted the situation wrong and perhaps there's a different strategy to approach it. [Interviewer O.A. 05-26-22 Pilot Interview pg. 4] So I had this community of Black men that I could rely on, including upperclassmen, who helped me navigate. I had a Black associate director of admissions, [NAME redacted], who was always there for me. My freshman advisor, [NAME redacted], who was a special assistant to the president was there. So I had these people to latch onto, and we had an Office of Minority Education that provided tutorial services, et cetera. So when you think about wraparound support, I had that at [PWI 1]. Even though the broader [PWI 1] seemed threatening to me, I effectively had a buffer. I experienced what Vincent Tinto called institutional integration, which is high quality interactions with administrators and having quality connections with peers. Tinto shows that those who have those two sets of relationships in schools are more likely to persist. I've observed that this principle applies to schools, colleges, and in the workplace. That's really what got me through. [Interviewer O.A. 05-26-22 Pilot Interview pg. 6] 4-8 Pre-Publication Copy, Uncorrected Proofs
Peers, Ingroups, and Outgroups Interview participants also emphasized the importance of having supportive peers and allies during their education and professional pursuits. The committee revisits this subject in Chapters 7, 8, and 9. And we had a significant number of Black people. We have 25 in my class at my first year of class ... What was our community like? Initially, it was a community that was â we were a tribe in this era of tribalism. We formed a tribe. We were there for each other, but at the same time, because of the lack of diversity amongst our tribe and the lack of resources for most of our tribe, we all struggled at about the same place. [Interviewer L.M. 5-24-2022 RT p. 2] So at that point in time, I had to find somebody to study with. It was at that time that I decided to utilize the skills that I had learned in being the only Black in a predominantly White school starting from middle school to high school to college, and decided to start reaching out to my colleagues who are White and try to find folks, White or other, to try to find folks that would work with me. Eventually, I found a crew. And in my sophomore year in medical school, I actually rented a house with seven other medical students. There was a guy from Taiwan. There was a guy from Switzerland. There was a guy who was an Army brat. There was a guy who was of Native American heritage. There was another guy who was from Canada. And then there was a guy from Berkeley, which is its own country in itself. And we all lived in this one house with me, the one Black guy. We would study at night until 10 and 10:30 at night, and then we would have this big quiz bowl. If I stumped somebody, I had to teach them. If they stumped me, they had to teach me. And what that did was like a rise in tide. It lifted all of our boats. We did extremely well academically. [Interviewer L.M. 05-24-22 RT pg. 2â3] I went to [PWI] and, you know, all of my classmates, I found went to private schools and, and had better preparation than I did. [Interviewer JNB 5/17] In the program that I was in â¦there was another Asian woman who was in the class with me as well as an African American man. That was very encouraging because the rest of the program and all the faculty and all the other graduate students, the Ph.D. students because I was in a Ph.D. student. They were all White. Just showing up and being able to see that there were at least two people who were considered people of color. We developed a genuine friendship from the very beginning and became friends throughout my tenure there. [Interviewer L.M. 5-12-22 Pilot p. 4] There was a clear sense that [we] the Black faculty were different. It was a small group of us, and we began to meet with each other even though there were two of us in medicine. Others were in the social sciences, history. We would begin having meetings on a regular basis, in one of the more senior faculty membersâ homes, and have those discussions. We would talk about how we could get more students in, how we could support the students that we did have. That was a sense of support. [Interviewer L.M. 6-14-2022 RT p. 6] Savvy Mentors, peers, and allies may provide insights into norms, the unspoken rules that promote belonging and may help individuals avoid racialized aggressions and microaggressions. Interview participants described how this knowledge influenced their experiences. 4-9 Pre-Publication Copy, Uncorrected Proofs
It's very difficult to really know exactly what the steps are that should be taken. There's always a game being played that you're not privy to. So there's just a lot that you have to learn. [Interviewer J.N.B. 05-17-22 Pilot pg. 2] I do think that there are unwritten rules in any organization. The values, the actions, the behaviors of people, the norms, the attitudes, all these things define a culture. And most of those elements are invisible to individuals when they walk into an organization. I'll give you an example. I showed up at [redacted] where I felt uncomfortable because of my socioeconomic background. I had never had my shirts laundered ever in my life. I only had two two-piece suits, and I discovered something on day three because I wore a sport jacket and a gray pair of pants; a blue sport jacket, and gray pair of pants. And someone pulled me aside and said, hey, [NAME REDACTED], I've never seen this. No one wears a separate sport jacket and slacks here; it's always a two-piece suit, shirt, and tie. And I think if I did not have somebody pull me aside and say that, I would've just gone ahead in this, and perhaps been evaluated in a way that says, âHe doesn't believe in the cultureâ or something, because people will create their own story, right? [Interviewer O.A. 05-26-22 Pilot Interview pg. 13] It was very difficult at times, but that gets back to the resilience: the family and the confidence, and willing to work harder, you know, to get promoted at [primarily White institution]âonce I knew what I had to do, you need this many publications... and if you have a NIH grant that helps a lot... And so, you tell me what Iâve got to do, and then I'm going to figure out how to do it. And so that approach seemed to serve me pretty well, is just trying to understand, what does it take and then figure out a strategy to do it, irrespective of all the noise. [Interviewer L.M. 06-16-22 GM p.8] I think there were probably about 20 of us that identified as Black or African American. I sadly, during my first year of medical school, I lost my father... I plowed through and interestingly, I was in the library and one of my classmates, a White gentleman, expressed his condolences and he said, you're getting ready for the exam? I said, yeah, it's going to be a⦠[I'm a] little worried. He said, well, did you, did you study from the exam? And I said, what exam? And so apparently, they had some of these older exams but we weren't privy to it. And then there was one woman, an African American woman, that I often studied with and I asked her, did you hear? She said, no, I had no idea. And so, you know, it's very interesting. Clearly there were some advantages that were just blatant, and you know, I essentially was oblivious to any of those things and, you know, we just, that was our thing. We just put our heads down, and we worked really hard. And we were fortunate to move past some of those difficult tests. [Interviewer L.M. 06-14-22 RT Interview 2 p.7] Money In addition to social capital, several interviewees discussed the role that capital resources played in their experiences. We donât have the same type of wealth because when we come out of [REDACTED] school, most of us are first generation [redacted] coming out. We donât have the wealth. We have income. But we donât have wealth. But with our income, comes the aspect of beholden. We are beholden to our church. We are beholden to our family. We are beholden to our extended family. We are beholden to our loans because nobody paid for our education to come to the school. [Interviewer L.M. 5-24-2022 RT p. 2] I had a full-ride scholarship, as well a stipend. I think for me that made a huge difference. I didnât have the pressure that some of my other colleagues had to take on research assistance or teaching assistance in order to make additional money. The financial support took a huge burden off of my shoulders because it allowed me to focus on my work every day and my 4-10 Pre-Publication Copy, Uncorrected Proofs
research as opposed to financials. And honestly, I probably wouldnât have been able to afford the program without that level of financial support. [Interviewer L.M. 5-12-22 Pilot p. 5] I think we have to find ways of helping take that financial burden off especially Black Americans, African Americans who are so often first generation and just do not have the support and donât want to necessarily be in debt the rest of their lives. [Interviewer L.M. 5-12- 22 Pilot p. 12] Sources of Resilience Interview participants raised a range of sources of resilience including personal resources, such as family, faith, and self-reliance. Faith, family, colleagues, who believed in me as classmates, faith from going to church, faith from the prayers of my mother and my grandmother and my grandfather, faith from understanding who I am and more importantly, whose I am. Resilience and understanding. Itâs not what they call you but what you answer to. Resilience and understanding that donât give away your power. Keep your power as close to your chest and donât allow people to take it from you. And then humility. [Interviewer L.M. 5-24-2022 RT p. 5] And what that [exclusion] did for me was quickly (and that's sad), it quickly made me to look inwards. I mean something you could have asked people easily get the answer to, you had to go on read it up, you have to find the literature, the relevant people publish something in order to do the same experiment you could have just asked somebody about. [Interviewer Y.A. 07-15- 22 GM pg. 4] NATURE OF EVIDENCE: MULTIPLE METHODS OF GATHERING KNOWLEDGE There are a wide variety of ways to gather evidenceâto learn and know in understanding pathways to professions in STEMMâthat are worthy of attention and were used by the committee in its work. That diversity includes traditional quantitative methods as well as model- based inquiry, Indigenous approaches, oral and community traditions, and interviews to capture lived experience. Model-based inquiry takes the premises of the standard scientific method and provides a different context and process for using them to build understanding: â¦. âmodel-based inquiryâ respects the precepts of the scientific method (that knowledge is testable, revisable, explanatory, conjectural, and generative). While the scientific method attempts to find patterns in natural phenomena, the model-based inquiry method attempts to develop defensible explanations. This new system sees models as tools for explanations and not explanations proper and allows going beyond data; thus, new hypotheses, new concepts, and new predictions can be generated at any point along the inquiry, something not allowed within the rigidity of the traditional scientific method (Castillo, 2013). Another method derives from Indigenous approaches. One Tewa scholar (Caiete, 1999) defines Indigenous science as: 4-11 Pre-Publication Copy, Uncorrected Proofs
âa broad category that includes everything from metaphysics to philosophy to various practical technologies practiced by Indigenous peoples past and present ⦠[and, like western science] has models which are highly contextual to tribal experiences, representational and focused on higher order thinking and understanding.â (p. 81 as quoted in Snively & Corsiglia) According to the Tewa scholar, Indigenous science includes âexploration of basic questions, such as the nature of language, thought and perception, the nature of time, human feeling, and knowing, interconnectedness, and proper relationships to the cosmos. It is a philosophy that gives rise to a diversity of technologies, such as hunting, fishing, plant cultivation, navigation, architecture, art, and healingâ (p. 90-91, as quoted in Snively & Corsiglia). âComing to knowâ, a phrase that indicates a journey, is the process of âgenerating or learning Indigenous ways of living in natureâ (Cajete, 2000; Peat, 1994). Indigenous coming to know is âa journey toward wisdom or a journey of wisdom in action, not a discovery of knowledgeâ (Aikenhead & Ogawa, 2007). Another method is the use of oral and other community traditions to capture knowledge. Using methods that go beyond written records is especially important in capturing knowledge about groups that have not traditionally preserved information via writing or print. Oral history provides a fuller, more accurate picture of the past by augmenting the information provided by public records, statistical data, photographs, maps, letters, diaries, and other historical materials. Eyewitnesses to events contribute various viewpoints and perspectives that fill in the gaps in documented history, sometimes correcting or even contradicting the written record. Interviewers are able to ask questions left out of other records and to interview people whose stories have been untold or forgotten. (Baylor University Institute for Oral History, 2016). Finally, there are methods for capturing lived experience, which are called for in the committeeâs statement of task; the interviews conducted by the committee were designed to capture the lived experiences of Black STEMM professionals. The committee also recognized it is important to continue collecting lived experiences and to include voices that are not well represented in the research including those of Black, Indigenous, and other minoritized individuals. In the context of the information gathered through the structured interviews with Black STEMM professionals and understanding the nature of evidence and multiple methods of gathering knowledge, the committee came to the following conclusion: CONCLUSION 4-1: Oral history and other means of exploring the lived experiences of scholars from historically and systemically minoritized groups in STEMM offer valuable 4-12 Pre-Publication Copy, Uncorrected Proofs
insights that supplement findings from other kinds of research. These methods should be continued and expanded. 4-13 Pre-Publication Copy, Uncorrected Proofs
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