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Episode 0024 Shownotes
Strategies for
underrepresented PhD students,
with Prof. Dr. Carlotta A. Berry
Prof. Dr. Carlotta A Berry shares her career and study strategies for underrepresented PhD students. She's a first generation engineer who came back to academia to role model a more inclusive way of professoring in engineering education.
Let Prof. Dr. A. Berry mentor you via the PostdocTransformation card game, in this and our previous episode Mentoring your way.
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We played the PostdocTransformation card game live on TikTok!
Welcome back PostdocTransformers. This is the sequel episode of my repurposed TikTok live with professor Dr. Carlotta A Berry. Please also listen to the first part, because that really has been inspiring for me as well. So without further ado. Next part.
Carlotta A. Berry is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. She is the 2021-2024 Dr. Lawrence J. Giacoletto Endowed Chair for Electrical and Computer Engineering. She has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Spelman College, bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology, master’s in electrical engineering from Wayne State University, and PhD from Vanderbilt University.
So, you know that she is an expert and I'm so glad that she'll be talking to us. Not about her work. But instead she'll be talking about her. Impact as a professor. Being a black woman. Being a mother in academics.
So, she has a special passion for diversifying the engineering profession by encouraging more women, marginalized and minoritized populations to pursue STEM degrees. She achieves this purpose with robotics, education, engineering, education, and human robot interaction research to bring more people to STEM.
So, without further ado [00:03:00] let's dive right in!
What advice do you have for students and young individuals who come from underprivileged and underrepresented backgrounds aspiring to follow in your footsteps?
Representation matters. It's difficult. Representation matters, though. And the biggest challenge is there's not a lot of us. So, especially during the pandemic, there was a real insurgence of black and X in the community.
So, now you can find #blackinengineering, #blackinrobotics. So, unlike when I was younger, it's [00:02:00] a whole lot easier now to find someone who looks like you, but I have a blog post that says it's harder when someone doesn't look like you, but it's not impossible. So, you want to always try to find a mentor who is supportive and will advocate for you, even if they're not the same race, the same gender, or the same age.
Carlotta, your blog post is a really great resource and I'll make sure that I will link to your blog as well.
Right now, because of Black in Engineering and Black in Robotics and the Black in X community, there are ways and mechanisms. Right now, Black in Robotics actually is having a mentoring program so you find people who will be authentic and who are invested in your success.
Yes. I saw that on your website. So black in robotics.org. , you have, black and robotics student conference travel or black and robotics, Google PhD awards. So, There are lots of resources. Look that up!
I ended up doing presentations all the time and I have people walk up to me. [00:03:00] Um, grad students, undergrad students. I did a presentation at Boston scientific last week and had two of the undergrads walk up and go, yes, will you mentoring me?
Maybe I get them 15 minutes out of my day just to answer questions. They don't even want a lot. They emailed me and was like, do we need to send you a resume? No, just ask me your questions, baby. This ain't no job interview. You asked me to mentor you, not hire you, right? It does not require much. And like, one of the young ladies just wanted to know, one of her professors she feels has made some racist comments in class, what should she do about it?
I have had several black female engineering students say similar things to me about a white male professor. I said, the first thing you do is you go document that by telling someone. If you don't feel comfortable doing it while you're in the class because that professor has a position of power, document that with an advisor, with a trusted mentor, and either after you graduate or after you're no longer in that class, make sure that gets reported to somebody.
And did you know that we offer deep dive e course workshops and memberships at graduate schools? Maybe also at yours in the future. Ask your graduate school coordinator, whether they want to book my services so that I can deliver them to you 24 seven, 365 on your mobile device.
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Where there instances when you had to challenge the status quo in academia to create a more inclusive space?
How did you navigate those situations? Did you call out or shut them out? So, I talked about code switching earlier. You have to be very strategic about what you do.
Until you get tenure you have to be strategic about choosing your battles, right? So, until I got tenure and full professor, I knew my colleagues had to evaluate my work. So, because of that, I didn't always speak out on everything that bothered me, but I always did a little bit.
So, my decision points were typically the students. If it had something to do with the students, I was going to... fight for them because I became a professor to be a champion for students. If it was something about me I kind of made a choice, like I had a couple colleagues who made a couple of racist statements. Depending on who it was I might have ignored it and walked away or I might have said something like, you know what, that was just a little bit racist. I could not also totally deny my voice, because I wanted to be [00:05:00] a full professor or I wanted to have tenure.
I think it's important like I left my first university because I had spoken out so much about how the students were treated. It drove me crazy. I could not stand it. And it used to make me itch and cry just to go to work. And I got to get out here. I can't take it. I cannot take the disrespect. So, that's what made me finally leave that school. So, that's how I decide. I speak out on a lot more now. I'm actually a little sad right now is because of the lack of diversity.
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Please also check out Prof. Dr. A. Berry's shop to discover her AI art, books, merch and robots
Code switching
And the challenge is me and a colleague started a scholarship program for black and brown students and underrepresented students and women. Right. And just because of this affirmative action decision, we've recently heard that they're going to take some of our work off the school website because some people are now suing universities because of the affirmative action decision, if they feel there's any bias towards majority students.
So, I still have to be a champion for those things, but I now have to be a lot more strategic about how I can formally do it. Like, I'm never gonna stop. Like, the scholarship program still exists. But now recruiting is going to be an awful lot harder because people can't search the website to find stuff about it.
Right? And so, I'm going to always speak out about those things because if that was the reason I became a professor and I'm no longer using my voice for those things, I don't need to be in this job or I'm in the wrong one. But finding ways to do it where you don't step on many toes.
Now that I have full professor, I stomp [00:07:00] away. I don't care. But before I did, I had to make sure, like my mentor, I did eventually get mentors. I know you asked the mentor question earlier. I did eventually get a mentor. So, I have mentors that helped me through grad school and now I'm black women engineering professor mentors. I just didn't know who they were then because there's so few.
So now that I know them, you know, one thing she said to me is she's just like, you got to understand, you have to be there to help the students. If you don't get tenure, if you don't get full professor, you can't achieve your goal. So I had to play the game and do the dance to get to that point. That's another TikTok there.
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Can you reflect on the role that diversity and representation played in your academic and personal journey and how they shape your legacy?
Not having it shaped my legacy because I wanted to be there to be what I could not see. That was important to me. It also shapes how I engage with my students.
Whether black, white, male, female. All of them can benefit from diversity. All of them can benefit from seeing a professor who doesn't look like the majority professor. or having someone who engages with them from a position of authority. Not so much now, but when I first got to my [00:09:00] current school, being Indiana, Nebraska, middle of nowhere, is them seeing you standing up in the front of the room is almost kind of jarring for some of them because they've never seen a black person or a woman who was not a mother figure, who was not in a position of authority for them.
And because of that, I got a lot of questioning about my credentials, about whether I was competent about if I was just hired to check a box for being a double minority. And so I am there for all of them, so that they can see a different face to what STEM, what engineering, what academia looks like and what people look like who can teach you.
Right. And it took a while to get them there. Diversity is for everybody. I had some colleagues who got upset with me because I run the scholarship program I told you about. So, because of that, everybody's always sending me the black students and the female students when they have challenges.
And so in a meeting, I said, look, it is everybody's responsibility in this department to promote diversity and support diversity, not just the women. Not just the black people.
It's everybody's responsibility because everybody [00:10:00] benefits from diversity. I didn't even think that was that big of a deal. But later on, I was called into the office by my department head: He said, there are a few faculty who were really bothered by MY statement And they came to talk to me about it.
Who? I'll go talk to them, who? Cause I don't feel like what I said was even that bad. That lack of representation, that lack of diversity will send you running. I've been in some jobs where the microaggressions had me running for the heels. I've also worked at the HBCU, they had me running for the heels too.
It's just kind of like, nowhere is totally perfect. But some places are definitely worse than others. Regardless of where I am, I have to leave my imprint. Otherwise, I'm not meant to be there. So if I'm letting them basically squash out my light, then I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing.
What strategies do you employ to help your students believe in themselves and their potential, especially when they face doubts due to their backgrounds?
That one's really hard, and I think it goes back to the authenticity question again. Just because you fail an exam, a delay is not a denial. Just because you fail a class, a delay is not a denial.
I will tell them I failed exams when I was an undergrad. I failed classes when I was an undergrad. It's not the failing that's the problem. It's what did you do after you failed? [00:12:00] So what I do a lot of time is the coaching.
You know, they're embarrassed. They're ashamed. Get your jaw off the ground and come to my office. And let's figure out what we can do to turn this ship around. Get in tutoring. Get to a study group. Set regular office hours every week. How did you study? A big one is how did they study? Stop scramming at the last minute the last night.
Have you ever read your book? Most of them have not. Did you, did you study all week? There are some strategies for being successful that you can do. That you copy your notes over and fill in the gaps with the reading and go see your professor or the tutor if you didn't understand what you were reading.
There are ways to get an A. Everybody don't just get it. Just cause you see that one 4. 0 sitting there not taking notes staring at me. That ain't you. Some people got to work for it. And I tell them, failure builds character. Struggling builds character. So, just because you can't get it, does not mean you can't.
Go to the support services. I've had students in Nebraska before who had an accommodation letter and forgot to give it to me. Which means they never [00:13:00] got extended time the exam. Or, needed accommodations and never went and got the letters or what they needed for their accommodations. Use your resources and recognize that there are resources for you to be successful. Everybody don't just get it. Right. I didn't just get it. I had to come up with some strategies and change the way I did it. A lot of my bad grades when I was in undergrad is because my mother could not support me financially and I did work two and three jobs.
Working two or three jobs in engineering school is a recipe for disaster. But I had to eat. I had to pay my rent. I had to pay my bills. That all had to be done as well. But strategies to do that well, that's important. So, I think that's extremely important is a closed mouth don't get fed. I say that all the time.
If you're going through something, you need to talk to somebody and let them help you. Exactly.
Yeah, it's a, there's a German phrase for that. It's Bring- und Hol-Schuld. So you have to also invest into the success that you want.
How did you leverage your platform to raise awareness about issues that are often overlooked in academia, advocating for positive change?
So, not just the social media, but being co-founder of blackinengineering and blackinrobotics. We have done video campaigns about the experiences of black, black engineers and academia. Um, we have a YouTube channel where we talk about some of those things, sharing things, like this live, right?
Or posting videos on YouTube and TikTok and Instagram. A lot of people have gone through what we go through. A lot of people have these experiences, but there can be isolating because there are not so many of us. So, by amplifying and bringing attention to these things, some people will listen and some people will know and understand the importance of what we do.
Not everybody. [00:16:00] Some people are just ignorant, right? But the few who will, we need to build community around them in order to make a better space. You know. And as long as some people are helped and supported by that, that work can already help... Yeah.
And just for the record, I will also put the link to the www.noiresteminist.com.
And so that everyone can find out more about your work, because I know that you are also, um, multiple book author, do you want to, yeah, but black STEM romance novels, um, breaking point Chandler's choice and elevated Inferno Monet's moment, I'm working on book three right now. That's one of the things talking about work life balance.
Those are the things that get kicked to the back when I get busy at work. My edit of my next book is so far behind, but, um, those are the things that get neglected a little bit also, um, you know, I'm really into this digital black STEM AI art right now.
I am loving that stuff, but I can't get, you know, I have more of that. I have more ideas for that, but I can't do it. You know, I also do [00:18:00] robots, slam, um, hip hop poetry. I don't know if you know that I have a song I've been trying to get recorded for four days because I'm giving a, um, presentation to teachers on Saturday and I want to play it for the teachers, but I got to find the time to sit down and do it yeah, I think the books are important. I think the robot portrait is important. I think a lot of stuff I do is important, but there's only one me and I actually hired a virtual assistant for 10 hours a month to kind of help. Okay. And I'm now learning even that 10 hours she does is just not even putting a dent in all the stuff I'm trying to get done.
But, I guess it's better than nothing. So that's another way that we promote our discipline is by showing people who don't look like their traditional mold doing some of these STEMI things.
This is why I do the robot videos, right? You know, I could do all that robot stuff off of camera just as well, probably less work, but we want people to see us.
This was my highlight of the day, regardless of whatever I will be doing like now.
Thank you. You were my highlight today and I'm so appreciative. [00:19:00] Thank you. Your time in your busy schedule.
So this round of applause is for you.
All right. So this is the end of season two, and literally we couldn't have asked for a better ending. With professor Dr. A Berry, we are ending season two of the PostdocTransformation show on a high note.
My team and I want to thank all PostdocTransformers for listening to the previous 24 episodes, helping scientists leaping into business.
We had episodes for incoming and intermediate PhD students, for seasoned career transitioners contemplating about a comeback to academia. Some episodes were more received than others. And we will double down on these topics for season three.
Oh, when is season three due? That is on December 7th. 2023!
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