Defining Who Scientists, Engineers and Mathematicians

On yesterday, I was at an urban film festival that closed with a series of short films that were a part of a project called "The Black Masculinity Project". As I reflect upon the film and the discussion that took place afterward about how do we define black masculinity and who controls how the image of black males are portrayed in the media. How does this impact how society views black men?

Although, how the media portrays different ethnic groups in society is a never ending discussion and something that we can't control; i will focus on what I can control defining who scientists, engineers and mathematicians are to our children. Many children don't pursue STEM careers because they don't see those careers as something that they can pursue nor have they meet someone who looks like them in those fields. Through media and television, many kids see STEM professionals as geeky, nerdy, weird people and mostly white males. Even if they see or hear about African American scientists, engineers or mathematics, they hear about those that are no longer with us such as Dr. George Washington Carver, Dr. Percy Julian, Garrett Morgan or those that are still alive like Dr. Neil Tyson, a brilliant astrophysicist, who has several Ivy League Degrees. Although,I believe that Dr. Tyson is a brilliant scientist, how many of our kids are interested in astrophysics. Dr. Carver, Dr. Julian and Garrett Morgan were brilliant scientist and engineers, but we still have scientists and engineers that are still alive that are making contributions to society. But how do we introduce them to innovative engineers like Dr. Lonnie Johnson, who invented not only the supersoaker, but is still creating innovative products to enhance our quality of life. We need to introduce them to the scientists and engineers that are working for academic institutions, corporations and government agencies, that aren't geeky, aren't white males and if you didn't ask them, you wouldn't know that they were scientist and engineers.

We define who scientist, engineers and mathematics are by introducing as many STEM professionals to K-12 students as possible. But most importantly, by telling them that if you are good math and science and want to pursue a career in the fields. You create the new definition of who next generation of scientists, engineers and mathematicians will be.

Teaching our kids that bumps in the road doesn't mean that is the road you should travel

Last night, I got a frantic voice mail from one of my mentees. They were having an issue with a college, which was a pretty major issue, but wasn't one that couldn't be resolved; however the student felt that it couldn't and wouldn't be. As I was talking to him and providing solutions to him to resolve this issue, I wondered, how many people don't pursue STEM careers because of bumps in the road in there pursuit of that career path. For those of us who have STEM degrees or career paths, we have experience bumps in the road while getting our degrees and on our jobs may you say maybe I should be an English major or give my boss my two weeks notice. But the key to us staying on the path is we didn't see that set back or bump as a sign that we should not get our degree and graduate or keep our job, but as sign that we may need to ask for help or do something differently than what we were currently doing to achieve our desired results.

So as we as STEM professionals, reflect on the bumps in our career path and how we were able to overcome the obstacles, problems and times where we felt that life would be easier if I wasn't a stem major or professional. Let's teach those behind us the lessons that we have learned from experience and/or our mentors. Just like when we are walking or driving down a street that has cracks and/or potholes and we either trip or feel the wear and tear on our car, but we keep walking or driving on the road. We tell the students behind us, just because you may fail a test, mess up an experiment or feel like on your internship you aren't producing at the level your mentor expects, doesn't mean that you aren't meant to be a stem major and professional. It means that you need to try a little harder, do something different or seek help from someone that is a few stages ahead of you in the game.

The technology that connect us

I hope that I am not dating myself, but when I was in high school, the internet was just being introduced to the world and we were still figuring out how to use this new technology. I remember a few years ago, an adopted younger brother on mine, asked me "way back when you were in high school did you use the internet?". Yes, I used the internet and technology, but not to the extent that is used today and I am still learning all the different ways to incorporate technology into my life and business.

I consider myself a person that takes advantage of technology, I email using my computer and my PDA( the post office has definitely lost a lot of revenue because of email) and pay 90% of my bills online. I'm on facebook, linked in and just getting us to the blog thing. I am still overwhelmed by how this technology, a history lesson for you that was developed by an African-American male engineer, has truly changed how the world operates. I have a facebook friend who hasn't been in the United States in weeks, but yet we know how he is doing, back in the day you would have had to wait until he mailed you a postcard or got back in the country. There are newspapers and magazines that are going out of business because instead of buying a newspaper or magazine, we get our news online. Internet radio and podcasts expands our options for radio programming, i know everyday I listen to NPR from a NY radio station. Not to mention if you need to know anything at all you can simply look it up on www.GoodSearch.com (state that the charity you are supporting SEM Link) and find the answers to your questions. I'm wondering when team of engineers and computer scientists developed the internet or world wide web (www.) did they envision how it would connect us and create a global community.

As the executive director of an organization whose vision in the community is to "unveil potential through exposure", have I and my colleagues really exposed ourselves to all the technology that can connect us to the global community. Have I used all the possible methods of social networking to connect with those individuals that believe in our mission and may be willing to support us? Have I investigated all the possible methods of incorporating technology in our program curriculum? Have I investigated using technology to promote academic achievement and career exploration in math and science to K-12 students all over the world, not the ones we can gain access to here in Atlanta? How many technology professionals, computer scientists and engineers are in our volunteer pool; because we can't expose our kids to careers in those fields if they aren't a part of the SEM Link network?

There are so many questions to answers and many of them I have to get from the internet, my program assistant, board of directors, advisory board, younger cousins and others in my network. I just want to ensure that my vision for promoting student achievement and career exploration in math and science isn't too small.

The Mentoring Cycle

This morning, I received a text message from one of my mentors and had a phone conversation with another. I'm blessed to have several mentors, but these two particular men where instrumental in helping me become who I am as a professional, a person with a engineering degree that has devoted her career creating educational programs to help train and develop future scientists and engineers. In training future scientist and engineers, I developed a presentation on using mentoring to achieve your career goals and the presentation was based on my relationship with these two men and my strong desire and believe that if you should pour into others what has poured into you.
As I being mentored by these two men and several other mentors, I currently have a few mentees a received a text message from one and a phone call from another. In both conversations, I realized that the relationship these students have built with me over the years, have help shaped their career choices, just like my relationships with my mentors have shaped mine. I am very pleased to say that both of these students are pursuing stem careers and about 90% of the mentees I have picked up are doing so as well.

Dr. Dimandja, a world renowed scientist at Spelman, has a quote in which he says, "you are never too old to be mentored nor too young to mentor". That is the mentoring cycle as people a few steps ahead of you are teaching you what you need to know, connecting you with people you need to know and supporting you along the process; you are doing the same thing for those a few steps behind you.

Creating a Future STEM Pipeline through Exposure and Mentoring

These past few days, I spend time at a conference whose purpose was to expose high school and college students to biomedical and health professions. While at this conference I meet many bright young students that had an advantage over their peers, they were in an environment where they were learning about and meeting professionals in career paths of their interest.
As I was having conversations with some of my peers and colleagues who are stem professionals or have stem backgrounds and most of us realized that we had little or no exposure to people that were doing things that we were working in the fields we were interested in nor what a scientists, engineering, technology professional or mathematician really did. Although none of us regret our chosen career path, we realize that we may have made different decisions and how beneficial meeting and interacting with someone in our desired career path would have been.

Each day, we have an opportunity to meet and interact with K-12 students and college students. As you are having conversations with them about the things they are interested in, why don't you spend a few minutes talking about what you do and how you ended up doing it. Who knows, you may be having a conversation with a child that has an interest in pursuing a stem career. Or you may get a transform a child's mindset from pursuing a career in sports or entertainment to one that they can pursue by going to college and graduate school. When you meet those students, go ahead and give them your business card and tell them to feel free to contact you.

For those students who take you up on your offer to contact you after your initial conversation. Make time in your schedule to interact with them, listen to them and share your life experience. Many students need mentors, but aren't sure how to ask a person to be a mentor to them. So let the relationship form naturally over time and be a consistent older person in their life, that is vested in helping them grow , develop and succeed over time. If you thinking about it, we all are were we are today, because people who didn't have to invested and poured into our lives by being our mentors; so we owe it to those coming behind us to do the same thing for them.

The importance of worker bees for the survival of non profits

On yesterday, I was having a wonderful breakfast meeting with a talented and brilliant professional just a few years my senior. As we were discussing the status of SEM Link and other non profits, we decided that in order for non profits to survive and achieve its mission, it is important that staff have worker bees to do the work that will help them achieve their mission. Ever non profit organization has support from two groups of people, doer and donors, both are equally important. The donors provide the resources that the organization needs for its program and operations. But it is the worker bees that do the work for the organization such as serving on the board, being an active and committed volunteers to provide program and administrative support. As you are determining how to serve your community and what organizations you will devote your time and talents to, please do some serious evaluation of your motives for making a commitment to the organization. Not profits can't afford people to serve so they can add a section to their resume or be a conversation topic for people in your network. For our survival, non profits needs donors and doers (worker bees). No matter what your commitment to the organization besure that if you decide to be a donor, honor your pledge commitments and be sure to mail that check as well as encourage people in your network that have the resources to be donors to make a contribution as well. If you are a doer (worker bee), it is important that every task that you sign up to complete that you follow through and complete it. Don't use life or a busy schedule as an excuse not to complete the task because we all have life issues and have busy schedules. When you make a commitment, follow through on it because more than likely the non profit can't complete the task with out your support. So that you can increase the amount of worker bees on the organization team, encourage people in your network to volunteer to help the organization achieve it mission.

The achievement of any organization's mission is based on its support team of volunteers and board members that are committed to doing whatever they can to help the organization achieve its mission.

Using your talents and expertise to make a difference in the lives of a child

In the past few days, I have been in conversation with a few wonderful individuals that are volunteering their time and expertise to help SEM Link achieve our mission. What was so wonderful was these individual were not our typical volunteers, which are science, engineering and mathematics professionals. These individuals were graphic designers, web developers and a team of MBA's that are marketing experts. Although these professional don't have the expertise to provide direct assistance with our programs, these individuals are just as valuable in helping us achieving our mission.

As a non profit organization, we can't just worry about the programs, but we have to be concerned with the operations of our organization. It is these takes that allow us to be able to support our programs, which is the bread of butter of who we are as organizations. These graphic designer, web developer and the team of MBA's help us promote our programs to the community as well as to other individuals and corporations that will be willing to make a financial contribution to the organization or donate their time and expertise to the organization.

So I encourage you if you are a person that is interested in volunteering, think about the behind the scenes things you can do to help an organization achieve its mission.