Statement on Diversity
SPINES is focused on increasing diversity in the neurosciences. Please describe your experience working with diverse populations and/or your interest in working to enhance diversity in your future career.
Your personal and professional life can be greatly impacted by the advice, wisdom, and support of a mentor. I can honestly express the impact my mentors have had on my personal and professional development, because I attribute the confidence and experience I have gained as a scientist to their support. As representations of minorities in science, my mentors encouraged my aspirations to pursue a scientific career despite being a young Hispanic woman. Many young minority students do not receive the encouragement necessary to pursue higher education. I would like to support minority students the same way my mentors have motivated me and inspired me to pursue my goals. Through undergraduate
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research programs such as the BUILDing Scholars program, I have been exposed to the excellent work that can come out of a diverse population of developing and established scientists. Therefore, I plan to be an advocate of diversity in neuroscience by taking what I have learned from my mentors and educational programs and applying it as a mentor. A mentoring relationship that commenced during my years in high school and continues to this day, invigorated my interest in research and made me aware of the lack of diversity in science.
As a mentor, Mr. Luis Miranda, treated each student equally by demonstrating that being a certain gender, race or having a particular socioeconomic status does not define the extent of your abilities. My current mentor, Dr. Eddie Castañeda, also stresses that you should never discredit your own knowledge and abilities. He has a wonderful habit of correcting his students the moment they vocalize any doubt in their abilities while motivating students to overcome their own insecurities. This has taught me that you cannot define a struggle as something you are incapable of overcoming. Accepting that you are capable of surpassing a struggle builds confidence and deems challenges as surmountable experiences. I plan to further develop my own confidence as a scientist to promote this same message as a mentor, because the diversity initiative starts at the level of the
student. The BUILDing SCHOLARS program provides a workshop series to cover varying topics that are relevant for the professional development of their students. It's quite impactful when a workshop requires a conversation concerning micro aggressions minority students may experience when leaving the university. At UTEP there is a unique dynamic within labs because they are diverse. You gain not only from your personal experience as a research, but also from the variety of students and how their different perspectives can alter the way we approach scientific questions. This type of setting builds a foundation for students to grow into successful scientists. I admire the students I work and interact with, because they have accomplished everything from publishing three research papers to entering Ph.D. programs at the age of nineteen. There is a strong minority representation at UTEP that has made the institution very successful and this level of representation should be supported in the field of research as a whole. I plan to contribute to the diversity initiative by using the foundation provided by my undergraduate education.
SPECIFIC PURPOSE: I want my audience to believe that mentoring will truly help Chicana and Chicano students to advance in education.
Throughout life there will always be obstacles to overcome. Whether it be personal, work related, or just trying to figure life out. There is not one person who is immune to these things. Unfortunately, there is not one person who is immune to discrimination either, which is why we, as human beings, must make a greater attempt to recognize the differences every individual has to offer, and embrace whatever it is to it’s full potential. Many feel the pressures that womanhood presents, for instance. Not to say there isn’t burdens that are exhibited with manhood, but there still remains some hefty barriers on the road to 21st century equality. It is a fact that men are met with greater confidence in the workplace, while women remain severely underrepresented
As a minority student, I advise that we should not let anyone put us down. That is the secret. With or without support, we should keep in mind our goal of becoming professionals in our field of study. If our interest in school is interrupted, we must maintain our deepest reasons for attending college. Looking back and reminding ourselves of our goals will help us to get back on track. College is a race that many of us are competing to win, but we are starting off behind. Minority students should keep on fighting to catch up. It is a complicated battle that consists of personal ambition, educational desire, and inner persistence. If we keep on struggling to become better individuals, we can hopefully someday free ourselves and take off these uneducated and minority labels from our backs and become part of the educated majority.
One of the possible research topics I plan to undertake involves analyzing the impact that mentoring can have on the graduation success rate of African American males, particularly when the mentor is a Black male and the relationship takes place in the south. In my opinion, these relationships can have a profound impact on a student’s ability to persist towards graduating from college. Though my research, I want to hear the stories of Black males who have benefited from successful mentoring relationships with other Black men. I believe that establishing a strong mentoring relationship with Black males at a young age can greatly improve their chance of academic success. Furthermore, I believe that mentoring is a strong early intervention mechanism to prevent Black males from dropping out of high school and deterring them from pursuing degrees in higher education. At the same time, I would like my research interest to focus on African American males in the south, but I would like my scope to focus on mentoring relationships between black men; both structured and unstructured.
By reflecting on my experience as a child, I was able to clearly ask myself, “Does this teaching method affect the oppressed students in my classroom, and if so, how?” As mentioned before, I had a student that struggled with math and writing. This student, along with about 3 other students in her class, was a Black female. Most of their writing prompts consisted of content that was all about a Caucasian male that went into space, or did something with his wealthy, loving family. Besides the fact that these girls cannot relate to these types of prompts, it also leads them to believe that women don’t often do big things like going into space or become wealthy with loving families. Although I never had the chance to teach a full class in an anti-oppressive way, I have made sure that I take every student’s culture, ethnicity, ability, class, and language into consideration when teaching/mentoring.
Workforce diversity refers to the existence of individuals with different cultural, economic and social backgrounds within an organization (Claretha, 2014). In the modern world, there is increased level of diversity in the workforce due to increased level of awareness and socioeconomic interactions among people. Therefore, organizations have become multicultural places which require effective communication to ensure organizational success. That is, in the modern global community, the workplaces in various organizations have become more culturally diverse (Claretha, 2014). This has had serious impact on the personal and professional relationships among employees depending on the communication model that is established in an organization. In addition, due to the increased level of competitiveness in the business environment, organizations have been forced to establish suitable framework to effectively manage human diversity. This paper will analyze the concept of workforce diversity and organizational communication and determine its benefits and possible disadvantages in relation to business success.
As can be seen, the victories for individuals who are in a certain group or society are so difficult to achieve because there are a lot of stereotypes and limits that others put in place that prevent certain individuals from achieving and pushing through diversity. During High school, I remember being treated harshly when I became pregnant at the age of 16; during the 90’s this was not precisely common for most High school students.
Lessons in life are constantly learned in many ways. The things each individuals need to learn and give light towards are things they are doing to adapt within society. Due to the way that our society is always showing signs of changes, individuals need to figure out learn to identify and acknowledge diversity. By hearing Feezeela Raza in class shared her thoughts and experiences on diversity , I tend to picked up valuable insight into diversity , how they are being treated and also how to completely acknowledge all people dealing with diversity issues , in all situations.
...mates to ask, upon seeing my class schedule, “Avery, are you even Black?” or “Why aren’t there any girls in your classes?”) It’s not uncommon for a student to sacrifice his or her interests due to a lack of support. One of the most valuable skills for students to have is the confidence to persevere and prove their critics wrong. Thus, it is important that mentors are a positive force throughout students’ lives.
Companies such as Buzztronics are leading the way in the global economy because of their dedication to diversity in the workplace. In order to build a diverse and successful workforce, a business needs to recruit, train, and retain capable and talented minorities.
When considering the sheer amount of people in the world, it’s fair to say that meeting different people with different thoughts, ideologies, and experiences is basically inevitable. As such, I too have met my fair share of different people, despite being shy and introverted, however the people that had the most impact on me came from my first workplace. The people who I met at my workplace where people whose different experiences in the same workplace helped me start enjoying working for Whataburger.
The point of these journal entries is to see how my understanding of diversity and my own personal identity evolves throughout this course. Looking back at this past month I realized just how many key factors we have covered, some that I might have heard of before and others that were brand new to me. Although every discussion and reading was important, there were two main topics that influenced my train of thought the most: privilege and the impacts of a campus climate.
Having diverse generations in the workplace have pros and cons like any other diversity in the workplace. “While research on generational diversity is not new, there has never been a time in history when four generations were in the workplace at one time. This offers both challenges and opportunities for managers and businesses” (Lewis & Wescott, 2017, p. 2).
Now that we have explored my past, present, and future experiences with diversity, it is time to see how they are present within and effect each other. Firstly, let’s look into how my future is present in my past. The most obvious portion of my future that is in my past is my willingness and efforts to love and include everyone and to spread this world view. It took a fellow classmate of mine to demonstrate to my third grade self that we are all human beings and we all deserve to be treated as such. In my future, I aspire to demonstrate this world view to my students and inspire them to treat each other accordingly. This aspiration directly reflects my world view struggles I went through in third grade, for I want to help my students come to
I read the Stem Diversity Awareness article as well as watched the Ted Talk where Jedidah Isler spoke about how students of color face racism as well as challenges that could impact their futures. I thought and agreed with everything Isler spoke about. I think it’s absolutely true that our society still excludes and distinguishes people of color. Isler mentioned how a man at their lunch table pushed all the dishes towards her and told her to basically make herself useful. It’s truly unfortunate that our society thinks things like this are appropriate and okay.