Why an HBCU Med School Decided to Put CARES Act Money Into Students’ Pockets

Why an HBCU Med School Decided to Put CARES Act Money Into Students’ Pockets

by | Jan 21, 2022 | Commentary, Headline News |

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Just before students at Meharry Medical College went home for Thanksgiving, Dr. James Hildreth, the school’s president, emailed them a video message that he acknowledged seemed hard to believe. Or at least they had to give it a second listen.

“We’ll gift each of you $10,000 in cash,” he said, looking at the camera. “You heard me right.”

They were told to expect a direct deposit the next day or pick up a check in person. Hildreth, an expert in infectious diseases who helped lead Nashville’s pandemic response, explained that this gift with no strings attached was money from the CARES Act, a major covid-19 relief law passed by Congress in 2020. He asked only that they be “good stewards” of the windfall.

After deep consideration, Meharry’s administration decided to give roughly a third of its CARES Act funding — $10 million — directly to its future doctors, dentists and public health researchers. All told, 956 students received payments.

Meharry’s students had already been heavily involved in the pandemic response, staffing Nashville’s mass covid testing and vaccination sites. But the money isn’t so much surprise compensation for volunteer efforts as it is an investment in a future career — and an assist in overcoming financial hurdles Black students especially face to become medical professionals.

While Black Americans make up roughly 13% of the population, the Association of American Medical Colleges finds Black doctors account for just 5% of the nation’s working physicians — a figure that has grown slowly over more than a century. And studies have found that Black patients often want to be cared for by someone whom they consider culturally competent in acknowledging their heritage, beliefs and values during treatment.

Meharry graduates more Black physicians than almost any other U.S. school. And half of its M.D.s enter the high-demand but lower-paying specialty of primary care.

“We felt that there was no better way to begin distributing these funds than by giving to our students who will soon give so much to our world,” Hildreth said.

Cheers erupted in the library as students clicked the video link.

Andreas Nelson fell silent, he recalled later. He went to his banking app and stared in disbelief. “$10,000 was sitting just in my bank account. It was astonishing,” he said. “I was literally lost for words.”

The Chicago native is finishing a master’s degree in health and science at Meharry with hopes of entering its dental school. The average student loan debt in the program totals more than $280,000. So, undoubtedly, 10 grand won’t make much of a dent in the debt.

But the money in his pocket eases his top concern of making rent each month. Nelson said it feels as though he’s being treated like an adult, allowing him to decide what his greatest needs are in getting through school.

“It’s motivating,” Nelson said. “Because that means they have trust in us to do with this money whatever the cause may be — whether it be student debt, investing or just personal enjoyment.”

Across the board, students at HBCUs rely more on student loans than students at historically white institutions. Roughly 80% take out student loans, according to an analysis by UNCF, formerly known as the United Negro College Fund, and they borrow considerably more.

Meharry was founded a decade after the Civil War to help those who had been enslaved. But the 145-year-old institution has always struggled financially, and so have its students.

The reasons are rooted in the country’s racist past, which has left the institutions with less money potentially available for scholarships than other universities. And students’ families generally have less wealth to tap into since Black households across the country have averaged around $17,000 in net worth — about a tenth of the average for white families.

Meharry’s average student debt is far higher than other area schools of medicine at Vanderbilt University and the University of Tennessee, representing both private and public institutions.

Virtually all colleges and universities received allotments under the CARES Act, but HBCUs have been much more aggressive about funneling substantial amounts directly to students, who tend to have greater need. More than 20 HBCUs have erased outstanding tuition balances. Some have canceled student fees.

But Meharry, one of the few stand-alone HBCU graduate schools, is a rare case in cutting checks for students.

“These young people are rising to medical school against all odds,” said Lodriguez Murray, who leads public policy and government affairs at UNCF. “Of course, they have to borrow more because people who look like them have less.”

During the pandemic, major philanthropists have taken new interest in supporting the few HBCU medical schools. Michael Bloomberg committed $100 million to four institutions, including Meharry, to help educate more Black doctors.

Students at Meharry can now apply for $100,000 scholarships. The $34 million from Bloomberg Philanthropies is also going toward other kinds of financial support.

The school is now offering, for no additional fee, expensive test-prep services through a Boston-based company, MedSchoolCoach. The service, which entails paying a doctor by the hour to help with studying, can cost thousands of dollars.

While the price is often out of reach for students tight on cash, acing the benchmark exams toward board licensure is key to landing coveted fellowships, qualifying for lucrative specialties or just finishing on time. And Meharry’s four-year completion rate of roughly 70% is below most schools. The most up-to-date national average is around 82%.

For some, Murray said, a $10,000 windfall may make all the difference in whether they cross the finish line and become a doctor who can afford all their medical school debt.

“Many of those students are borrowing a lot of money to complete their dream, and to become relatively high earners in the future,” Murray said. “The fact that these students are largely coming from lower socioeconomic backgrounds means that the funds that Meharry turned around and gave to the students are particularly impactful.”

This story is from a partnership that includes Nashville Public Radio and KHN.

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As Congress debates, Black Baptist leader calls denial of voting rights ‘evil’

by | Jan 19, 2022 | Commentary, Headline News |

(RNS) — On the day of a major voting rights debate on Capitol Hill, a social justice coordinator for the Progressive National Baptist Convention said fighting for voting rights is an effort to conquer evil.

“This convention practices a ministry of erosion,” said the Rev. Willie D. Francois III, co-chair of its social justice arm, during a Tuesday (Jan. 18) news conference held in Atlanta and livestreamed on the denomination’s social media.

“What does that mean? We keep showing up so that we wear evil down. The denial of voting rights is evil. The protection of Senate rules over the protection of the public is evil.”

The news conference was held at the historically Black denomination’s midwinter board meeting, just as legislators on Capitol Hill debated voting rights bills that the PNBC, along with a number of other faith organizations, support. However, the bills are not expected to pass.

Francois said the PNBC would be working with Faiths United to Save Democracy, a new coalition that has urged the Senate to change its rule about the filibuster, a stalling technique that requires 60 votes to end it and which is often used by the minority party to stop a bill from passing with a simple majority vote.

“The filibuster that was used to block anti-lynching laws cannot be used right now to block voter expansion,” Francois said. “And so we’re calling on our Senate to reform its filibuster to ensure that we can actually pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and we can also pass the Freedom to Vote Act.”

Regardless of what happens during the current debate, the PNBC leaders said they intend to move ahead with plans to lobby members of Congress in March and register voters weekly in their congregations and communities, aiming to increase voter rolls by 500,000.

The Rev. Adolphus Lacey, a pastor in New York’s Brooklyn borough, said these efforts will continue despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“COVID is real; COVID is a threat,” said Lacey, a PNBC social justice commissioner. “But even more serious than COVID, as real and scary as it is, is to see thousands and thousands of thousands of voters not being able to vote, and it was on our watch. We refuse to stop. We refuse to turn around.”

The denomination’s voter registration initiative will be aimed particularly at millennials and members of Gen Z.

But it will also focus on states with key races expected to have close margins, said the Rev. Darryl Gray of St. Louis.

“We don’t want to just register a half a million people,” said Gray, a PNBC pastor who served in the Kansas Senate in the 1980s and ran an unsuccessful 2020 campaign for Missouri state representative. “We want to register a half a million people in United States senatorial campaigns that are going to be consequential.”

PNBC leaders noted they belong to the denominational home of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., in a state at the center of voting rights debates. King co-pastored Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was influential in the civil rights movement, also is based in the city.

“We believe it is no coincidence that this convention, born out of the need to fight for justice, is in this state and city at such a time as this when our voting rights are under fierce attack,” said the Rev. David R. Peoples, president of the PNBC.

“This is a call to action from the Progressive National Baptist Convention. We come to not just pray. We come to not just push. We come to not just preserve. We’ve come to protect the right to vote.”

READ THIS STORY AT RELIGIONNEWS.COM

Rev. Al Sharpton calls for justice in police killing of Valentina Orellana Peralta

by | Jan 12, 2022 | Commentary, Headline News |

LOS ANGELES (RNS) — The Rev. Al Sharpton, speaking at the funeral of the 14-year-old fatally shot by a Los Angeles Police Department officer, recalled coming to Los Angeles 30 years ago to protest the beating of Rodney King by police.

“We keep seeing LAPD get it wrong. And here we are again. How long will it take for you to get it right?” Sharpton asked.

Valentina Orellana Peralta was with her mother, Soledad Peralta, on Dec. 23 in the dressing room of a Burlington clothing store in the San Fernando Valley’s North Hollywood neighborhood when, according to news reports, LAPD officer William Dorsey Jones Jr. fired at a 24-year-old man identified as Daniel Elena Lopez, who had been assaulting a woman in the store. The officer’s shots killed Lopez, and Valentina was also killed when one of the bullets went through a wall.

Both the girl and her mother had come to the United States from Chile.

Sharpton, on Monday (Jan. 10), eulogized Orellana Peralta, who was displayed in a pink dress inside a flower-draped casket during her funeral at City of Refuge, United Church of Christ in Gardena, near Los Angeles.

Today I’m eulogizing 14-year-old #ValentinaOrellanaPeralta who was killed by a LAPD stray bullet as she shopped for a Christmas dress. I’m praying for her parents and loved ones and we will seek justice in her name
📹 @rachelnoerd pic.twitter.com/NPyYj3lDhu

— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) January 10, 2022

“There is nothing normal about shooting so recklessly that a young teenage girl looking to live the American dream, that was shopping with her dear mother Soledad, possibly getting a Christmas dress, ends up being dressed for her funeral,” Sharpton said. “This could have been my daughter. This could have been your daughter.”

The shooting made international news when President Joe Biden called Chilean President-elect Gabriel Boric to congratulate him on winning his country’s election and during that conversation, “offered his deep condolences to the people of Chile for the tragic death” of Orellana Peralta.

Orellana Peralta was remembered as a happy teen who excelled in school, who was an advocate for animals and who yearned to become a U.S. citizen. Her father said she had dreams of becoming an engineer to build robots.

Sharpton, during the eulogy, said it was important to make it clear that “we don’t just fight for our own because we all are our own,” Sharpton said.

“Whether you are from South Central, Harlem, or Chile, right is right … If we call for justice for some, we must call (for) it for all, and I wanted to come 3,000 miles to say, ‘Justice for (Valentina)!’” Sharpton proclaimed.

Added Sharpton: “There are those … around America that talk about refugees coming to America, some from Chile, some from Central and South America, some from Mexico, and they ask me why I stand and fight for them to have rights. I fight for them to have rights because I worship a refugee from Bethlehem.”

“Jesus was a refugee, and you cannot despise refugees and then stand up and say you are a believer in Christ,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

At Milwaukee church, refugees find welcome from a less suspicious time

At Milwaukee church, refugees find welcome from a less suspicious time

by | Jan 11, 2022 | Commentary, Headline News |

MILWAUKEE (RNS) — Asher Imtiaz is the kind of person who always seems to be wandering into a great story.

Like the time in 2017, when the Pakistani American computer scientist and documentary photographer walked into a Target in Nebraska and ended up being invited to a wedding thrown by Yazidi refugees from the Middle East.

Imtiaz had gone to Nebraska to shoot pictures of life in small-town America in the age of Trump, far from the country’s urban centers. Among his portfolio from the time is another Yazidi family, dressed in patriotic garb and heading to a Fourth of July picnic.

“I went to see America and found these new Americans,” said Imtiaz at a coffee shop on the north side of Milwaukee last year.

Imtiaz fits right in at Eastbrook Church, a multi-ethnic congregation where he serves as a volunteer leader at an outreach ministry for international students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus nearby.

Eastbrook is a bit of an outlier these days, a place where refugees, immigrants and international students are welcome at a time when American evangelicals are increasingly suspicious of newcomers to the United States.

According to data from the Public Religion Research Institute’s Immigration Policies Survey, nearly 6-in-10 (59%) white Evangelical Protestants agreed with the statement “Immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background.” By contrast, only 31% of Americans overall agreed with that statement.

At an outdoor service at Eastbrook in August, Imtiaz wandered through the congregation greeting friends and exchanging hugs as a diverse worship team led the congregation through a mix of traditional and contemporary songs. The service started with the singing of the traditional Doxology, which begins, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow,” followed by songs like “You Are Good” and “Way Maker,” by Nigerian gospel singer Sinach.

That was followed by a reading of Psalm 23 in English, Spanish and Yoruba.

The church was founded in 1979 by members of Elmbrook Church, a megachurch about 20 miles to the west. Elmbrook’s then pastor was hoping to get church members more involved in the communities where they lived. Dubbed Eastbrook, it was led for three decades by former missionaries Marc and Nancy Erickson. For the past 11 years the pastor has been Matt Erickson (no relation).

The proximity of the university campus led to an intentional outreach to college students, especially those from overseas, which continues four decades later.

Every fall, church members give tours of Milwaukee to newly arrived international students, who are then invited to have dinner at the homes of church members. Many of those students come from Christian backgrounds and are seeking to connect with a church, said Imtiaz, who was raised as an Anglican in Pakistan, a country where only about 2% of the population is Christian.

Those students are also looking for friendship. Imtiaz pointed to a 2012 study of international students in the South and Northeast, which found that 40% of those students had no close friendships with Americans. Through the outreach at Eastbrook, their students often make friends in their first days in the country. Many of them end up spending holidays with church members and making longtime friendships.

“It’s basically providing a home away from home,” he said.

The church also operates an International Community Center on the south side of the city, where a number of recent refugees and other immigrants have settled. The center teaches English as a Second Language classes and provides support with issues like housing and education. About 30 people will end up dropping by the center most days, Dan Ryan, senior director of mission at the church, said in an interview in early January 2022.

Ryan said the church is helping resettle some recent refugees from Afghanistan. He understands that some of his fellow evangelicals around the country are resistant to the idea of resettling refugees. Since refugees are here in the States, he said, churches need to reach out in love.

“Yes, have your political ideas,” he said. “But don’t lose sight of the people involved.”

Ryan said that the church and the center are very open about the Christian motivations for their outreach efforts. But they also steer clear of proselytizing. Their main goal, Ryan said, is to show love and welcome to their new neighbors, a point echoed by Matt Erickson.

“It’s a ministry of care and concern and tangible ways of loving people welcoming people,” he said.

“These folks are treasured by God and valuable in his sight,” said Erickson, who spent several years on the staff of World Relief, a Christian organization that helps resettle refugees in the United States.

While he’s not shy about talking about faith, Imtiaz doesn’t see himself as a “Christian photographer.” He said that Christians in the United States sometimes see their neighbors as “projects” or prospective converts, rather than seeing them as people first. He takes a slower approach, trying to befriend people and see them as a neighbor who is valuable in God’s sight.

As a photographer, Imtiaz practices something he calls “God at ‘I’ level” — trying to connect with the people he photographs as human beings, long before taking their picture.

Like many churches in the United States, Eastbrook has felt the pressure of the country’s political polarization inside the church. Erickson said that Eastbrook has always tried to bring together people from different backgrounds, as task made more difficult by the broader conflicts in American public life over race, politics and increasingly, COVID-19.

He often turns to a verse from the New Testament Book of Galatians, in which the apostle Paul urges his readers to “bear one another’s burdens.”

“The last couple of years have given us lots of opportunities to live that out,” he said. “Sometimes we are doing it well and sometimes we are not. Part of being a body is that we have to learn to talk with each other, and we have to learn how to understand each other.”

During his sermon at the outdoor service in August, Erickson urged church members to ground their lives in the Bible and its message of love, rather than on the noise of the outside world. Without that solid foundation, he said, their lives won’t reflect the kind of love God wants them to share.

“Brothers and sisters, I just want to ask us today, are we giving more time to the news, are we giving more time to social media than we are to the Word of God and letting it sink into our lives?” he said. “I’m not trying to be legalistic. I’m just sick of us being brainwashed and want us to stand in the kingdom.”.

Among the people at Eastbrook that Sunday were Mahitha Voola and Manna Konduri, both originally from India, who came to Eastbrook through the church’s outreach to international students and ended up staying after graduation.

From the beginning, people at the church made them feel at home.

“They say, ‘Oh, taste and see the Lord is good,’” Voola said, quoting a verse from the Psalms. “I’ve tasted that love of God through these people and through the church. I feel very blessed to be part of it.”

The two said they hope to pass on the welcome they have received.

“Today we are the recipients of this love,” Konduri said. “Tomorrow, maybe we will be the ones to show that to someone else.”

Eastbrook’s ethic of welcome, Imtiaz said, has been as much a boon for him as it is for the newcomers.

He’s particularly interested in documenting the story of immigrants and refugees, whom he likes to refer to as “new Americans.” For several years he lived in an apartment complex where newly resettled refugees were living so that he could get to know them. He ended up photographing a number of neighbors after building friendships. When he got COVID-19 — a mild case — one of his former neighbors, a woman from Iraq, would send him soup.

Imtiaz hopes that his photographs and work at the church will inspire people to get to know their neighbors, no matter where they come from.

“If I can go to Nebraska and go to Target and meet 400 Yazidis, anybody else can,” he said.

Don’t Drop The Mic: An Interview With Bishop T.D. Jakes

Don’t Drop The Mic: An Interview With Bishop T.D. Jakes

by | Jan 10, 2022 | Commentary, Headline News | 1 comment

As we navigate change in our world caused by the pandemic, social, economic, and governmental transformation, wisdom of all types is necessary. Leaders are trying to find new ways to engage those they lead  and everyone is working to communicate more effectively in our dynamic moment.

UrbanFaith sat down with one of the most influential leaders in the world, Bishop T.D. Jakes who has seized the opportunity to share his insight and experience on how to remain faithful to our purpose as we communicate in our dynamic context. In his new book Don’t Drop the Mic  he shares his wisdom on how to faithfully communicate regardless of the audience. It has been called one of Bishop Jakes’ best books as he explores clear and effective communication in our everyday lives and on the world’s biggest platforms. Bishop Jakes has led a megachurch with tens of thousands of members, The Potter’s House for decades, become an entrepreneur, filmmaker, talk show host, producer, and raise his children without dropping the mic. Two of his children are now successful pastors in his ministry network, Sarah Jakes Roberts and Cora Jakes Coleman. This book explores how he stayed true to his message while adapting his method through the years.  Full interview is linked above.

 

This teen has a lot to tell Eric Adams about the future of NYC schools

This teen has a lot to tell Eric Adams about the future of NYC schools

by | Jan 7, 2022 | Commentary, Headline News |

“This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters”

Amy Zimmer, Chalkbeat New York

In promising to rebuild the department of education from the ground up, Mayor-elect Eric Adams and incoming schools Chancellor David Banks vowed to seek input from students.

So far, they seem to be practicing what they preach. Adams’ transition team for education includes four “youth co-chairs”: two high school students and two college students from the City University of New York. Adams included dozens of other CUNY students on his transition team through an internship program.

Chalkbeat spoke with co-chair Mia Payne, a senior at Manhattan’s Talent Unlimited High School, who has been on the forefront of pushing for more civic education in New York City schools. 

The 17-year-old Bronx resident has been a leader the past two years with YVote, a youth civic engagement organization. As a civic fellow with Next Generation Politics — a related youth-led organization focused on cross-partisan civic engagement — Payne grappled with issues such as cancel culture, immigration, police reform and critical race theory, the academic framework that examines how policies and the law perpetuate systemic racism.

After sending a memo with ideas on increasing voter registration and civic engagement in schools to Sanda Balaban, co-founder of YVote and Next Generation Politics, Payne connected with the education department’s Civics for All team, inspiring them to start a student advisory group.

“Mia is a deep thinker about how to improve NYC schools and how to improve the Bronx and NYC more broadly,” Balaban said. “Last spring when all of our YVoters were analyzing mayoral candidates, almost all wanted to do a write-in campaign ‘Mia for Mayor.’”

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Congratulations on your role as a youth co-chair. Do you know if previous transition teams have had such a role?

I think this is the first time that they’re having it. When I learned about that I looked at my position differently because I’m like, ‘OK, are they gonna put me on the transition team as a publicity stunt for hearing youth voices or are they actually going to address the issues that I’m concerned about and take them into consideration?’

So that’s kind of like an extra level of responsibility. A lot of the time, politics is just a picture game. It’s all about image. But I’m a product of the NYCDOE. I go to school, I’m impacted by this. This isn’t another policy or administration for me. This is my real life. So I have to make sure that I get that across.

And what exactly is your role?

I wanted to make sure that my stories and experiences are not being exploited, so I had to make the platform my own. 

It’s not really responsibilities, like creating meeting agendas or anything, it’s more like, ‘You’re a participant like everyone else, but because it’s the first time we have youth as co-chairs, your story is going to be highlighted through a 10-minute session in the agenda.’

So yeah, I had that 10-minute session, but then also, something that really pushed me  — I’m like, there’s people in this meeting that have the power to change these issues I’m so concerned about by shifting culture. I didn’t want to let it be another panel where we’re gonna talk about issues and problems. I want it to actually lead to tangible action. 

So after the first meeting [out of three], where David Banks was like, ‘Tell me what you want. What are Day 1 priorities? What are actual tangible solutions?’ — that was my motivation because I’m like, okay, ‘cause I already know a lot of organizations that have been waiting for someone to ask that question. 

And so literally following up that meeting, I spent the whole weekend just kind of filling out a Google doc of everything that I feel like we need to be focused on, like integrating New York City schools, redesigning the curriculum, career and college readiness, prioritizing to the mental health of the students, reimagining their schools’ culture, and ways to spotlight our teachers. 

Tell me a little more about what you’d like to see changed.

We have one of the most segregated school systems in the country, which is mind-boggling to me because New York City is so diverse, and then you go inside the schools and ethnic diversity isn’t reflected.

So, a factor towards resolving this is the city needs to abolish the specialized high school admissions exam. I feel like a student’s potential shouldn’t be measured from their ability to answer math or ELA questions on an exam. 

It is very much an equity issue with the screening of our schools. And there needs to be funding for the opportunity for every school district to redesign their own community-driven diversity plan. 

We should expand education with emphasis on marginalized populations. I feel like that does not get talked about enough. There’s youth in the juvenile justice system that need quality education, homeless youth, migrant children — they’re not receiving the same education, simply based on their circumstances, which is not right. Everyone needs a quality education regardless of background or circumstances because that is how you’re progressing in society. The justice system is supposed to be a rehabilitation system, and you can’t rehabilitate someone without giving them education. 

You also mentioned career and college readiness. 

There is definitely a lack of college support in New York City schools, especially now with the pandemic because of understaffing.

We can have partners with nonprofits or different programs that want to do this — that want to get students mentored and give resources. That can help ease the caseload for schools. Teachers can’t provide the individualized feedback and attention that every student deserves because of an intense amount of classes they have to teach.

Another thing is just connecting with the College Now program [where New York City high school students take CUNY courses]. That’s really what got me interested in education. I took an urban education course at Hunter College and that was life-changing for me, honestly. It really just opened my eyes about the interconnectivity of American systems. I didn’t know the history of it. I didn’t know that if you’re strategically trying to target Black and brown students from an education, you’re trying to diminish a whole population within themselves. You’re depriving them of unlocking the potential and creativity of their minds and restricting them from being productive, powerful, and contributing members of society.

And [it helped me notice] how voting is so important. If you don’t have civics education, then politicians don’t care if millions are outside rallying for climate change, if less than 10% of that crowd is going to take their demands to the ballot box.

I’m working on expanding Civics for All week right now with the DOE in creating a student advisory team for the Civics for All department. Students may not know anything about government when they graduate, and statistically, it’s marginalized communities that aren’t receiving that knowledge, leaving them unequipped and civically illiterate in a nation that is governed by democracy.

And you mentioned mental health.

Students feel pressure to succeed and are worried about imperfection because their worth and potential are measured by their grades. I feel like we have to redefine what success is and reimagine a school’s culture — this is a broad issue because it has to do with the global culture of education and the way in which students are pressured to be elite. But students need to know that when they go beyond their initial expectations of themselves, and they’ve reached a level of nobility that society isn’t mature enough to honor, that is the real point of success. You should never have to bear that burden of having to get a 1600 on your SAT or having to get 100 in every class, to be seen as brilliant. 

I don’t think the traditional way of testing is really effective. Students are very aware that big testing companies are just making a buck off of their stress. They’re very aware of it, but they still go through it because they want to go to college. They joke about it, but it then leads to actual anxiety attacks and leads to actual suicidal thoughts. I’m very concerned about how normalized it’s getting within my generation and the paradox of advocating for mental health while falling victim to mentally demanding educational expectations.

So we have to evaluate the way that we test students in a way that’s actually effective. Like performance based-assessments so students go into college and work spaces with public speaking and teamwork skills, rather than only knowing pen and paper. We need performance-based assessments that really say, ‘I need you to reflect on the curriculum. I need you to be creative.’

When are you going to be chancellor?

My focal point right now isn’t education, though it is something I prioritize when being civically engaged. I’m looking into engineering. I will be double majoring in aerospace engineering, and civil and environmental engineering. I find intersection in almost every issue. So in civil and environmental engineering, I find a connection between redlining policies and the disproportionate placement of  highways that directly impact Black and brown neighborhoods, along with toxic waste facilities and other forms of environmental racism. And with aerospace engineering  I want to kind of branch out the solutions to climate change to come up with innovations. 

And then I want to minor in international policy and management so that I can spearhead multinational organizations that can bring those innovations to developing countries and understand how to do that throughout the world.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.