Grad Student Rides Full Scholarship to Diversity Conference

Last week, Family Science graduate student Dawnyea Jackson visited Arlington on a full scholarship to attend a national conference that promoted a critical message: you are not alone.

The 15th Institute and Mentoring Conference, sponsored by the Southern Regional Education Board, has become the largest gathering of minority doctorate students in the country. The Institute aims to prepare students for careers as professors, and focuses on the issue of faculty diversity.

"Networking with current minority students, who are pursuing doctorate degrees, allowed me to know that I'm not alone," Dawnyea told The Healthy Turtle afterward. "And I found comfort in knowing there are students all over the country doing exactly what I'm doing, and now, after my conference experience, I am able to use them as resources."

Dr. Kim Nickerson, SPH's assistant dean for diversity, nominated Dawnyea for the conference. Nickerson arrived at SPH in 2006 (when we were the College of Health and Human Performance) with more than 12 years of experience consulting with federal agencies and universities for increasing diversity and raising minority participation in science. (Read more about Dr. Nickerson here.)

"...just being nominated by such an accomplished Ph.D. in the field was very flattering," Jackson said. "Then finding out that I was not only nominated, but accepted to attend the conference, and received a full scholarship to do so, was even more of an honor, and I was thankful for the opportunity."

Dawnyea networked with faculty, administrators, and other minority students and graduates from across the country and disciplines, the facet of the conference she said was most valuable.

"Networking with faculty members allowed me to learn from their past experience and gain insight in to what it takes to be in their position sometime in the near future," Dawnyea said. "The current faculty also showed me how important it is to have people of color represented in graduate level education, in particular doctorate level education, as well as in faculty positions."

Dawnyea plans to pursue a doctorate degree in Public Health-Health Behavior and Health Education upon her graduation in May.

"Networking with recent graduates of doctorate programs allowed me to know that my goal is achievable and reachable because people that look like me and come from the same background as me were able to do it."

Dawnyea is in her second year of the Couple and Family Therapy master's program, and she is completing her thesis, Predictors of Family Cohesion and Conflict in Transracially Adoptive Families, under the direction of Dr. Leigh Leslie.