 HBCU Digest Radio, welcome back to our HBCU voices of STEM excellence, a profile of some of the best and brightest professionals in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, with roots from HBCUs across the country. Today, our privileged guest, or we are privileged to have Dr. Courtney Pitts, she is the director of the Family Nurse Practitioner Program and the co-director of the Nurse Midwifery and Family Nurse Practitioner Dual Program, both at Vanderbilt University, and a proud graduate of Jackson State University. And if you've been listening and following this series for more than a year that we've done it, you realize we seem to have a lot of Jackson State folks on here, so we will proceed with a acknowledgement that Jackson State apparently runs STEM in the HBCU community. So Dr. Pitts, it is a pleasure to have you on today. It is a pleasure to be on today, thank you. First, tell us about how you grew up, how early was it for you that you recognized nursing as a career goal of yours? And what was the environment around you like that helped to cultivate that interest in the field? So early on, I knew that I guess I would say early on my aspiration was to be a pediatrician, and I will be honest, at that time, one of my role models was Dot Richardson. He was an Olympic softball player as well as a pediatrician, so I was like, oh, I wanna be like Dot Richardson when I grow up. And so one of the reasons I really wanted to go into healthcare is because I was living in a rural town, great with Mississippi. And so there was an issue that I saw with healthcare, and especially those with HIV. And so I can say that I have pretty much been an advocate for those who are marginalized and underserved for a while. And so one of my things was, okay, how could I best serve a community like this? So once I started at Jackson State, I'd started down the path of actual biology pre-med. I ended up graduating with a major in biology and a minor in chemistry. And so after that, I actually went to get Masters of Public Health focused on maternal and child health and I'm like, okay, I don't wanna really do the population thing because public health looks at population. What's the common good for all people? And I didn't want that broad interaction. I wanted that one-on-one. I really like people. I really like people's stories. And that's the best way you can impact somebody is right there in the same room with them. And so it was actually my cousin who told me about the nursing program. And I was like, okay, it was actually here at Vanderbilt University. And so I was like, okay, well, you know, I'll apply and just see, you know, maybe this is an option. And I actually got here and I loved it. It was everything, nursing has been everything that I am about, being on the front lines, you know, being with the underserved and then to a point where I can help one-on-one, that holistic here, taking care of not only that disease process, but what else is going on with that person? So understanding that the financial impact, understanding, even though some people may have insurance, they still may be under-insured. So they still can get all the care that they wanna get. And so even in working in primary care, I also take care of individuals living with HIV. And so that's why really, because they have access, but then they don't because they have that stigma. So my first thing was service. And I guess that lends to my sorority as well, I'm sorry, service to all mankind, to the ladies of Alpha Kappa, Alpha Sorority Incorporated. And so my first, I had to plug it. So my first thing was service. And then the second thing was those who are at a disadvantage. And so my career has started out with those who are in transition housing, housing, children with special healthcare needs. At that time, we had hit the recession, once I had just graduated. And so, you know, we had natural disasters here and natural Tennessee. So that, I was like engrossed in all of that. And that was very fulfilling. It's very exhausting, but very fulfilling. And then I moved on to those living with HIV because I feel like they need a voice. They need an advocate. They need, if they have no other support, they at least needed me. So that's how I ended up where I am. So it sounds like this is something that started early on, you know, a heart for service. How did Jackson, your Jackson State experience, cultivate that? And how did you wind up at JSU? It's not rare for folks in Mississippi to say I'm going to Jackson State, which I think is beautiful because a lot of folks in the state wanna go there. That's a great thing. But how did you, assuming you had a lot of choices, pick JSU and what did it do for you? I did actually have a lot of choices because I'd looked at Fort Valley State University. I looked at all court. I looked at a lot of HBCUs. And that's because my family is an HBCU family. So my mother is a two-time graduate from Jackson State University. Her is my sister. My mother attended Jackson State University and Tennessee State University. My father attended and graduated from Valley State University. So we are an HBCU family. I have aunt who works at Jackson State. So we were, honestly, we're predominantly Jackson State University family. And so I was pretty much raised at Valley and Jackson State. So football season was a prime time in my household because we were going in between the two seasons. So we needed, yes, and especially if it was Jackson State versus Valley. Oh, that was crazy. That was ridiculous. And especially with my hometown being right there, what, 10 minutes away from Valley? So I'm literally raised. Yeah, and my parents, my mother worked for Valley. She just retired. She worked with Valley for 30 plus years. My father worked for Valley probably about 10. So HBCU is pretty much the majority of what I know and what I love and what I embrace. So my spirit of service was one cultivated by them because my parents are very active. And then two, once I got to Jackson State, I still had that dedication to service because one, I knew I had to go into the healthcare field. So exposing, that exposure of volunteering within the healthcare field is a form of service. Being a member of a sorority, that comes with service. Being a member of a sports team at Jackson State, that comes with a form of service. And so there's no way to avoid it in our honesty. I know that some schools now have it as a requirement for graduation. At that point, we didn't, but there are ways that it happened spontaneously without it being forced. When you think back about the transition from Jackson to Vanderbilt, and even, well, forget Vanderbilt for a second, just into your advanced degree programs, did you find that your academic experience at Jackson had well prepared you for that transition into higher level degree work? Or did you find like, oh, I gotta hurry up and catch up? No, I didn't feel like I had to catch up at all. In all honesty, I felt like I was more prepared. And the reason that I think that is because when you go into an HBCU, and these are things that we deal with here at Vanderbilt, these are discussions that I have with some of my colleagues here. When you go into an HBCU as a person of color, you're automatically assumed to be competent. And so you go in with that feeling of confidence that you can do these things and that you can excel. So some barriers that I may have experienced at a predominantly white institution were not barriers that I experienced at an HBCU, and I was able to grow. I was able to flourish in areas of leadership, in areas of acquired knowledge, in areas of service without any issues. And so I think that is kind of what helped, honestly. And even in your new, or not new, but your role at Vanderbilt, do you find that you cultivate around you with some of your peer faculty and other persons in administration with the program, with the students with whom you engage, that you find that there is an opportunity to create a somewhat of an HBCU experience, or is it one that you have to say, well, here are some things I got to do culturally to help some of these students, particularly students of color, or is that Vanderbilt has a built-in mechanism that addresses cultural needs, addresses academic needs, addresses other areas where students want to feel empowered in their studies? Yeah, so Vanderbilt does have some things in place, university-wide. I will say that the School of Nursing is doing a very good job adjusting as well. But I think the thing about healthcare is, as the demographics of the US population shifts, so should the individuals providing the service. So the providers that you see within healthcare should mirror those that you see out there that we're serving. So we cannot have a predominantly white, healthcare provider staffing is the majority of the people by 2045 will not look like them. We have to have a culturally responsive workforce who can take in other people's cultures or are empathetic or have experienced those cultures so that it's easier to guide people on the path of wellness and health. So as far as Vanderbilt, there are different things in place as far as the university to help with that. Is there room to grow? There's always room to grow. And there's room to grow at an HBCU. And I think the School of Nursing is working diligently to make sure that those things are in place. They have done things as far as the admissions process to increase the presence of those who may be underrepresented is to give those people a chance of removing barriers and providing more opportunities where they may not have been there before. So overall, are there opportunities? I can't say that it cultivates an HBCU experience there. You know, it can't, that can't be done here. But is it cultivating an experience that is more welcoming and warming to those who may be disadvantaged, first generation, persons of color, I think so, yes. There is obviously a national press for more nurses, right? And that HBCU's nursing is one of our areas of strength at several of our institutions. Do you think that even as great as HBCUs are at training nurses, when you think about the need that the country has for more of them, do you think that, not just HBCUs, but the country should be more inclined to say, hey, we gotta get young people. I mean, as far as elementary and middle school interested in nursing and then be directing them to schools like HBCUs that are really good at training nurses? Yes, wholeheartedly. So one of the things that I worked on last year, one of the national organizations responsible for leadership in nurse practitioner education, so graduate nursing education, we developed a statement on a call for greater racial and ethnic representation within nursing education. Because if we can look at the pipeline, if we can increase the pipeline, we can increase the nurse practitioner faculty that look like those students. So it is quite difficult to educate a diverse student body if the faculty isn't diverse. And so some of the initiatives from the various professional nursing organizations is to look at how do we increase these pipelines. There are programs out there that help funnel, they start at younger ages, so they start at high school and provide counseling and application preparation to help get these students in. I was even talking to somebody about, even if we're at HBCUs helping them prepare their applications to graduate programs, because some of that is comparing one of the barriers is finances. So if I get somebody out with a bachelor's who really has had a difficult time financially, historically, and they're making 50, $50,000 an hour in, it will be hard to get them back to go back to school. So we had those barriers, but yeah, I think as a nation, we need to focus, I mean, because right now I healthcare is at risk because we had these gaps, right? So I think as a nation one, we need to look at teachers and two, we need to look at nurses. Yes, I agree. What's the one thing that, given your academic and your career journey, what is the one thing that you would advise a brother or sister who's listening right now who wants to go into nursing, who is thinking about an HBCU, but like you has choices, what's the one thing that you would tell them you should really consider an HBCU for this reason and it'll help your career in this way. So I would say you should choose an HBCU for the same reason that I mentioned earlier. You go in knowing that you're competent. You don't ever have to second guess yourself. You rarely put in a position that you have to think, is this because I'm a person of color or is this because I just didn't do what I was supposed to do, you know? And so it gives you that solid foundation. You're amongst peers that are similar to you that may be of similar background and it allows you an opportunity to quote. It allows you, one of my father's big things is he wanted me to attend a predominantly institutional people of color because he felt like that's where I could best learn leadership and it's not because he felt like that people of color are difficult to lead. He actually thinks the opposite. If you can lead, successfully lead a group of people of color against the barriers that are already out there, you can lead anybody. Anybody. You can lead anybody. And so that is the thing that you would go in with. You know, I know that I'm competent. I know that if I failed, I failed because I just didn't do my job. Not because somebody, you know, is using, you know, their microaggressions or somebody else's. Trying to sabotage you, right? Yeah, yeah. So you go in with that confidence. Now, what I will say they may face is that when they come out, you may have people that are like, oh, you went to an HBCU. And if they ever, I will give you my email. If you ever hit that wall, please email me and we can have a phone call so I can give you the verbiage that you spit back at them because just because you went to an HBCU does not mean that you're inferior. Being in an HBCU prepared me for more than just nursing. It prepared me for life. So you come out with so much more. You're not a statistic. I was like, I go back to homecoming just to see my faculty. Like, I really go enjoy going back to say here. And they know me. They know that I've had children. They have pictures. You know, it's just a family environment. And when you feel like you're part of a family and you feel like people care, you grow. So that's what I'm gonna say.