 I always love when that comes on and just those of you who all have just joined on or may not necessarily be familiar with the minority serving institutions initiative within the Rackham Graduate School. I just started about three and a half years ago and largely came out of the institution wide plan. Many of the schools and colleges there are 18 schools and colleges 19 if you include the Rackham Graduate School. And about half of those identify engaging with more minority serving institutions more deeply to kind of address their, their diversity equity inclusion related challenges and their respective spaces right. I came in about three and a half years ago and the way that we've constructed this work is to provide support to the various university mission graduate and professional programs and their outreach to and their engagement with minority serving institutions towards building these mutually beneficial groups, those that are bidirectional, and that foster inter institutional rapport and trust, strengthen pathways for marginalized student populations, and collaboration across institutions and this is all in the spirit of our goals for not just in the initiative the coffee chat series and why we invited Dr. Levon Essers to join us here today. And just to provide you all a roadmap of today's session. Dr. Essers will will provide a presentation for about 3035 minutes and then the remaining time will be left for us to ask questions. Again as Michelle pointed out please feel free to use the chat function if you have any questions the raise hand feature, or other mechanisms that are made available. And then just for a little bit of background information on Dr. Essers he's a professor in the Department of Agricultural Sciences and communicate sciences education and communication at Purdue University, where he also serves as a director of mentoring at Purdue which is a program designed to to increase the representation of students from marginalized and minoritized backgrounds receiving post secondary stem based agriculture and life sciences degrees and produce College of Agriculture. I also want to know that Dr. Essers is also an HBCU alone fam you. I got it right. Correct. So I just want to shout out to all my HPC you folks here in the room there's some others that are joining us here today. Dr. Essers research focuses on issues of educational equity and access of marginalized and minoritized students with the concentration on the mentoring needs of black graduate students, stem career development of students attending HPCU land grant colleges and universities, and educational professional mobility and development of black graduate students and faculty. Dr. Essers is among the few which is why we invited him out here today. Black scholars in the United States conducting research in these areas, and has been able to serve as a role model for black graduate students who are committed to the broadening participation of marginalized and minoritized students and ag and stem disciplines. So with that, I would like for you all to just give him a big hand clap if you will. Invite Dr. LeVon Essers to impart upon us his wisdom. For the next half hour or so. Thank you for joining us Dr. Essers. Thank you for that welcome and introduction admin. So I'm really excited everyone to be here with you today. I'm looking forward to presenting, and I'm also looking forward to the questions that will arise after I have to present. So having said that what I would encourage you to do is and I say this every time I give a talk or presentation like this is, please please please jot down your questions. And then chat I'm sure admin and Michelle and and Maureen will help facilitate that those questions and bring them to my memory when this when this is over. I also have my, my phone here when it's starting a minute I sent myself at about 35 minutes so I try to stick to that time as well. But I'm really looking forward to this discussion so without further ado let me pull up my presentation for today and take you through some things so. So, again, I'm really looking forward to this and so I'd encourage you to really think deeply about this topic today and actually learn something new I didn't know that this program that MS book of had only been around for three and a half years so I just learned something new. And I think a lot of what he shared today coincides well with what I'm going to present to you about which is creating pathways of successful black graduate students through collaborative partnerships with historically black colleges and universities, or HBC use is what they normally go by. And as I mentioned, I always tell people that if you were to cut my arm I bleed orange and green, that's how much love I have for Florida and your Florida a and m university or family. My master's degree from another HBC you North Carolina a and t State University so I had the privilege and to attend to well known HBC use and I tell individuals a lot of my identity was developed at these institutions. So, not only having attended. contributes a lot to my work and what I'm going to speak to you today about but I think it also gives me a perspective that is unique in that case. So let me take you through some things today and so I want to kind of take you through. What we're going to focus on so this is kind of an overview of what today is going to be about so I'm going to provide you with understanding how to develop reciprocal and equitable collaborative partnerships with HBC use I think that's important those two components of reciprocity and equity and being equitable. And also I'm going to focus on some collaborative partnership practices taken from the mentoring our Purdue program or what we'd like to refer to add Purdue as the map program so you don't have to say the full name. Just say map and then know what you're talking about. And it's a nationally recognized and award winning inclusive excellence, inclusive excellence focus mentoring program that we developed and I'll give you some of the history in a moment about the map program. I'm for that man I'm not sure Edmond maybe knows much about it so I'm looking forward to seeing admin as well with questions you may have about map. So it's the play on words right today's roadmap, like a little joke, a little human academic humor. And so what I'm going to do is provide an overview of the mentoring or the map program. I'm then going to take you through and highlight the importance of collaborative partnerships with HBC use. I'm also going to have lots of strategies. If you want to lead to an understanding of how to engage with HBC use. I'm also going to describe strategies that lead to the development of reciprocal and equitable collaborative partnerships with these institutions. I'm going to also share with you and outline some pitfalls that should be avoided when developing collaborative partnerships with HBC use. And lastly we're going to have some Q&A or Q&D, if you will, some questions and discussion events. So again, please jot down your questions or place them into the chat. So let me talk to you a little bit about the map program. So the map program was established in 2013. So I serve as the director of the map program. I have a colleague who you see a little bit in the slide. Dr. Neil Knoblock, he's the co director and we established the map program in 2013. And the focus of the program was to increase representation of students from marginalized and minoritized backgrounds, such that they would pursue advanced degrees or graduate degrees in the College of Ag, but also not only that, but even across the entire institution. So this program, even though I'm based my appointment, my faculty appointment is within the College of Ag, all of what you're seeing a little bit, all of our programming initiatives spent across the entire institution. And the second thing, a second goal that we have with the map program was to enhance the quality of the graduate school experience because as most of you know, the two reasons why students leave graduate school. One is funding and the second is poor mentoring. And so through this second goal, we wanted to address issues tied to faculty mentorship and also offer some best practices about how faculty members and staff can can be better mentors to students. So this is the goal of what we laid out when we start the program in 2013. So we actually received the grant in 2012. But we actually kicked off the creation of the map actually as it is today, one year later so almost approaching 10 years and I've been at Purdue now 12 years. So being a scholar that I am and many of you, not most of you on here, believe in frameworks right and so this is a framework for the map program. We took some time to develop this and so this is kind of gives you a visual representation of what goes into the program and what is focused on. And so what you see here is that the whole goal of the map program was two areas two lanes if you would want to focus on one to focus on recruitment of students which is in the bottom right hand side, and then retention of students, in particular black graduate students who always don't want. And so in this house. So all these elements are what make map what it is today so we have the roof of the of the structure, and we focus on mentoring throughout all of what we do. And for those of you who know anything about mentoring that two pills to mentoring, you have an instrumental which is something that career advising those sorts of things supporting me have this cycle social support, which are things like being a friend offering support, you know, since belonging those sorts of things about that cycle social support. And then we achieve a lot of what we do through the retention side, which is again it's left hand side and we do this through every monthly workshops, we have our invited lecture series, and I'll speak a little bit in a moment and we have a peer mentor program, and then on that right hand side we just have to recruitment, which we call the gateway to Purdue, we have a summer scholars program, we have resource guy that we develop the game that you'll hear about a little bit, and we have a map newsletter. But not only that, we also have very good support from a cross institution, not only with my department from my department head from my dean. We have deans across produce campus and me and the colleges. Also we have support within a C administration so approvals who's my former dean. He's been supportive our vice provost of diversity, and some of those individuals, we also have various departmental staff and thank you support us. We have relations with the cultural centers at Purdue University. And we also have various campus stakeholders within Purdue but also outside of Purdue and other partners. And so again this framework this house is how we kind of visualize it is is the framework for the map program. So I want to make sure that I share that with you so you can kind of get a feel for that this is I think it's important when you developing prank programs like this, that you have some sort of framework that undergirds the activities of your program. So in our case, we have this this of house. So the next I want to focus on is our leadership team and approach and our structure. I think this is going to be important for you. For those of you maybe have an interest in developing programs so one thing I want to mention is that everything we do we use the lens of mentoring all of our activities so mentoring is that common thread through everything that we do. We also utilize mentorship to provide to develop a professional and personal professional and personal skills of graduate students, so that when they graduate well not only when they graduate but even while they graduate students within our college and other colleges and units, but even then that but also when they leave that they become social agents of change. So that's one of the key elements that we, we try to instill across our leadership team. The unique aspect of our program that many of you may not know is that in part even though I'm the director and you have Dr. Nalak who's the co director. Yes, we provide the vision for the program but at the end of the day. The work, much of the work is done by the graduate students so as managed by graduate students, and you'll see in a moment, who some of these students are. And I also want to mention that we achieve the goals that I shared earlier through the map program through six strategies we have the summer scholars program that I mentioned, we have a newsletter we have a resource guide. We have monthly seminars and webinars, we have invited lecture series, and we have a pair mentioned programs so these. This is our portfolio of you will have activities strategies that we we carry out through the map program. So here is our is my great team and again I cannot do this by myself so you see me, myself at the top with Dr. Noblock who serve as the director and co director. And then you have this is our currency now at one point in time, maybe three years ago we had as many as 1213 students on our team. So we've been very fortunate to have a lot of great students work on our team and just give you some so these are the titles these are the names of course in the titles that they hold. But Zach Brown on your far left here he's a, he's a doctoral student of mine. He attended Southern University in Baton Rouge. Yeah, Steve McBride, he's a doctoral student of mine he went to university to Tennessee. And I'm Patterson just graduating December. She's from Fresno California she is a graduate of preview and university. Then you have Andre Zabala Perilla. He's from Columbia. He's a doctoral student Dr. Noblox. You have Cornell France in the bottom left he's a master student of mine he's a graduate of Florida and in university. And then you have Gordon Gay who's who'll be graduating next month. Sometimes the summer, he is a graduate of Florida and university, and then you have Victoria Parker, who's a current doctoral student mountain should be finishing up her masters here this summer, and she's a graduate of preview and university. So, as you can see, one thing I like about this picture is that our team is diverse. And I would argue that most programs similar to this across the country will not be able to showcase the diversity within their teams like we do. And also, we've been very fortunate to have students who have attended HBC was working on teams so we have this collective energy and diversity of thought, and what they bring from each of their respective institutions. It goes a long way to adding value to what we do in our mat program activities. So let me go through some of the things in the program that we have that we have that goes on one we have our map summer scholars program which is our argues probably one of the gems of our of the map program. And you see on the left hand side this was 2019 cohort. We now have a program last summer because of course because of COVID. But since we bring students from our partner institutions to Purdue for a week in the summer and they learn about graduate school. So these are rise this is over to rising southwest Jews and seniors and master be students and so you see on the right hand side what students can learn about if they are selected to be a part of this program. This year, I'm excited to share and please let me know through admin or chat or some other means this year's programs going to be virtual. And so this is the fly just came out two weeks ago, maybe, and I've been blasting on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, so on so forth. And so we cut it down to two day event. And again, if you want this fly you want to share with you have contacts and connections at HBC use MSS for that matter feel free to let me know but this is our virtual program the virtual edition of the summer college program this year. So we're going to do some of some of the things but again is going to be virtual over a day and a half roughly period time time period in 2021. Then you have as I mentioned we have a map newsletter resource guide so left hand side is called roadmap to success again another plan words that we do and purpose of this resource of this newsletter just to share updates on where we are what we're doing are speaking events on the far left hand banner that of the newsletter you highlight team members in an upper quadrant on here. And just some other information and then on the right hand side, we have this memory at Purdue is called mapping again another plan words mapping out your future which is a resource guide, and it helps students who are interested in grass so we talked about it highlights information on graduate school application process GRE, Timbers for contacting faculty, explaining fellowships and assistantships so on and so forth so we have this again as part of our portfolio of materials. Then we have also as part of our portfolio one of those six things that we talked about earlier six strategies, we have every month we hold a map workshop or webinar or seminar we used to be called seminars but now in a virtual format they're called webinars, but on left hand side you see the lineup for the spring this semester we had so we talked about everything we have usually a panel of speakers, usually three or four. We talked about everything from mentoring and preparing by pop grass students for careers and family white fields and then next month, April, which starts tomorrow, building or building your brand mentoring for entrepreneurial activities so you put on these webinars. If you will, every spring and every summer, excuse me every spring and in the fall of every academic year then on the right hand side, we have our invited lecture series and this year marked our seventh. Yeah, our seventh or ninth annual excuse me ninth annual invited lecture series and so what we do is we bring in someone as prominent within a sense space that can speak to issues of connected to stem, but most specifically a mentor so this year we had Dr 70 page who is the creative hashtag black and stem, maybe you follow that she's phenomenal individual also went to a North Carolina T State University as well but one thing I'm proud of is that for nine years going, we have invited women of color to be our speakers and that's something that we didn't didn't do that way but we just happened to find that you know we looked up for five years in, we just had this this this momentum in that space and so that's one thing that I'm proud about that every speaker we've had. And not just saying we can one of the speakers I'm just saying this kind of how it just kind of evolved into. So we also have a peer mentor program that toy crops who is third from the left as a former doc student of mine she's now postdoc at rice and then next to her to from your left is the Ulysses has to who was a grad student of mine as well. They came up with this idea to create a peer mentor program. And the whole purpose of the program was to connect grass students to professional to help them, you know, grow as professionals and some personal development, they engage in critical discussions again faculty members did not attend this is an organic program that was led by students. I would attend only they wanted me to attend or Dr not like to attend but this was driven by Tory and you listen this case. And then this example this picture you see here. They also do fun things like social events in this case they went to painting with the twist. Here so this is just an example of what the peer mentor program was focused on. So that in a nutshell everyone is the map program and again, you have questions about that feel free to ask me at the end. But I want to now shift to what Edmund invited me to talk to you about today was this notion of collaborative partnerships with HBC us now I will I will say this that are per the map program would not be what it is today if it were not for the partnerships that we have with our HBC partners period. We do a lot of good work at our home base which is pretty university but even still, we would not be where we are today if it were not for the partnerships that we develop over the years. And so I want to provide you with a definition of style with what we mean by collaborative partnership and what we mean by that is simply and lots of individuals who come together to achieve a common purpose for common purpose that in a nutshell is what we mean by a collaborative partnership. So, right here in blazing on your screen are 17 of the seals of 17 institutions, and we have relationships collaborative partnerships with all 17 of these institutions, and this is something that I'm also very proud of. And as you see here these are not only all the HBC use but they are historically black land grant universities, HBLG uses acronym, and maybe I can come back maybe some other point and then talk about land grants but anyhow, these seals represent the partners with the map and so I'm very proud to showcase this and just so you know, there are actually 19 historically black land grant universities, and we have partnerships with 17 to South Carolina State and West Virginia State University really have loosely organized colleges of ag and who knows maybe they'll come on board later but right now, these 17 are who we work with. So I want to talk about some of our collaborative partnership activities. So WAM stands for women and minority in the sciences it's a grant that funded the map program 2012. We started met with a hundred fifty thousand dollar grant, and that grant was called WAMS 1.0. And so we did with WAMS 1.0 was when we established map program. And we started out with just two HBCU partners, FAMU, Floyd A&M University, and North Carolina A&T University of course you can probably guess why, because I have social capital there having been a graduate of those two institutions so we started out small. Then we went to WAMS 2.0, which was roughly $92,000 and what we did with that those funds is the elevated map expanded them of HBCU partners. We also created additional student focused experiences with WAMS 2.0. Then we have another grant was about $750,000. This program is called the Mentor Program now shared in a second and it built on map 1.0 and 2.0. But more specifically we facilitate interactions and partnership development among 12 1862s, which are the white land grants like Michigan State, I shouldn't say the thing right and 1890s. And then I just want to mention, I recently was consulting with USA. And one of the reasons they reached out to me was because of my experience and work with the map, but I was asked to help them think through and help them figure out how they can work more closely with MSIs and their innovation to feed the future innovation labs. And then we're currently working on a grant proposal is due next Wednesday, NSF grant project and it's going to build on map 1.0 2.0 and mentor. And what we're trying to do very simply is to develop a comprehensive approach to preparing HBCU students for graduate school and beyond so this is our portfolio of funded projects and and activities that I'm engaged in that our team is engaged in. And so again, this just gives you an example of all the ways that we collaborate with with HBCUs. So I'm going to talk for a little bit about the mentor project that I just mentioned in the previous slide. And here you see the seals of the institutions that are engaged in the mentor project and you see here that some of these seals are ones that you saw on that two or three slides ago. And this project brings together 13 institutions, six HBCUs and seven PWIs, and they have 11 leadership teams. The reason why they're 11, and they're 13 institutions because Purdue already has the map program Penn State is our external evaluator. And the goal of this project was to help them develop two year mentoring programs, not necessarily many map programs but really help them think about mentoring and how can we use as a vehicle to increase retention and to recruit students. And we do things like provide multi webinars, annual updates and feedback sessions and we have actually a first conference we held was last year. And again the name of this project is called the mentor project and if you want to learn more about this. Let me know and I can I can send you the information on off to our website. So I want to spend the last 13 minutes or so talking about the importance of collaborative partnerships with HBCUs now, it might have been I think in Edmunds opening comments. He alluded to maybe it was either in his opening comments or maybe before this session started that a lot of what I'm sharing today is not common knowledge to many folks. I'm going to try to help you do is think through why this is important and how you do it. Now also, I want to say that remember Rome wasn't built in the day. So it has taken us nine years roughly to get to where we are now. And I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world. So just keep that in mind as we go through this. So one thing I want to mention, regarding the importance is that the social cross institutional partnerships can, you know, expand human capital and technical expertise. That's, that's one reason why it's important also. And this is not, this is something I see that PWIs don't really grasp in my observations that they need to understand that HBCUs at the end of the day have a number of strengths that would enhance partnerships when knowing diversity of the faculty, but the faculty at these institutions have connections so you can broaden your scope and your impact in many ways. Also these partnerships between HBCUs and PWIs can help advance diversity of a unit of a college of a department. And I can tell you that in our department now I will digress for a second so let me say this that when I came to Purdue in 2009. My primary was last or probably tied for last in the college in terms of diversity among graduate students. Now we're number one. Now, there are two reasons for that. I will say one is a byproduct of the MAP program. It's a space and it's people have come to know it and understand here's something that can support them. Let's be clear. I think it's also a byproduct of having a black faculty member which they didn't have before. So I think all those things come into play but even still, I do think that if you approach these collaborative partnerships the right way, it can result in greater diversity in your departments of units. Again, we talked about this can have lasting benefits for all institutions. And they can result in institutions becoming ages of change. We think about the mentor project. Here we are working with 13 institutions. And more want to come on board and the degree to which they bind with they participate and they carry out the goals and objectives of our program. They will then themselves become known working in this space. So they become ages of change. There's also a greater and greater likelihood that when you come together, you can achieve more capacity building efforts, your efforts to be a greater impact if you come together and work together. So that's one thing to keep in mind. And also I think something that we shall be my brothers that it does these collaborative partnerships will like to have a great ability to address global grand challenges. Here's some some again great reasons why these partnerships are important. So you may be asked yourself, well, how do you engage with HBC us? Well, let me let me talk you through that. So, and what I'm sharing is what we have done. And what I have come to know matters. So I want to be very clear about that. Number one, you need to make visit HBC us period. Your visits could be exploratory conversations of hell. You learn about the it's important that you learn about the institution and the campus culture. And you can also make these visits by having engaging or maybe coming up with a way that you can be invited to give a talk at the institutions but you have to make visits and multiple visits is important. So today, even though we're in COVID, we still make visits to our partners now with having 17. That's gonna be a little bit more difficult but my point is, especially those that are just, we just added to our portfolio, we will be visiting those institutions, and I love visiting HBC us I mean, I just I love them with all my heart. Second thing, how you engage is hosting events, right, faculty research exchange opportunities, student exchange, student research exchange opportunities. Here's another way of how you can engage with HBC us. And then also, of course, team projects that cut across research teaching outreach engagement, those sorts of things and also grant proposals, like we've done with the map program so here are three primary ways that you can engage with HBC is but I would say, all these important, but I would say that first one is so critically important, you have to make visits, you have to understand the culture, you have to understand the people. He goes about saying that that is new number one you have to do that. So, oftentimes, so we should be asking ourselves the question, what's in it for these we see you so whether it be Michigan, Illinois, Penn State, all these institutions want to engage with HBC us. But this is the question you need to ask yourself when you want to engage is be outward, you know, think hourly, what's in it for the HBC you oftentimes we think about. What's in it for me, Michigan, Purdue, Illinois, Penn State. No, it should be the reverse. What's in it for the HBC you. And I'll share with you why you should focus on this, because we all have seen this story before I always like say I've seen this episode before, or HBC is always targeted, but they often have value within the relationship then looked as little brother. What happens is what skepticism then assumes on the intention of the relationship. So that's one reason why you need to be very careful, be very careful, excuse me when you want to engage when they see you. Also, one thing you can do is have a memorandum of understanding or agreement mo you or an MOA that can help that lays everything out makes everything clear. So this also not just HBC is the MSS of all types have much to contribute to partnerships through research efforts teaching extension outreach. So, again, when you want to engage with HBC is in particular, you need to keep these things in mind, and try to follow through in all these activities that I'm out. So, I want to focus. Maybe I have a couple of slides left, and I want to focus next to transition next to this notion of developing reciprocal and equitable collaborative partnerships. So what do we mean by that. So one, you must identify common needs and interest shared interest. It starts there. So why do we want to work with why does Michigan want to work with South Carolina State, Tennessee State, Delaware State. What's the reason what about common interests shared interest what are our needs. You need to have mutual respect. So what makes the relationship between the MAC program and those 17 institutions. I want to share with you. This is how we operate. We identify common needs and interest is mutual respect. There's shared decision making as director map I just don't make decisions. I have colleagues who are deans of these institutions associate deans faculty members I know students, there's a shared decision making when we were engaging. I also bring to the table also like to share how do how would Tennessee State benefit in this relationship. How would Delaware State, how would Alabama hand in benefit so this is focused on what's the benefit. You also need to focus on what's the potential of state sustainability. We're going on 10 years now. Right. That's pretty good. I never thought I would be in this game if you were 10 years later, but it's come to that. And I think what makes it easier for me to connect with other MSIs is people see that there's been sustainability over the years. And they say, wow, this is not just one, you know, shot in a dark type of situation that we're dealing with here. Also the potential for long term impact. Of course, if you have students coming from Tennessee State trip or do getting a graduate degree, going on to work to be successful is long term impact because what's going to happen is other students are going to want to follow the footsteps of their peers. And also I mentioned this in the last slide, you have to have a shared understanding. That's what helps make this reciprocal these relations reciprocal and equitable shared understanding. And also, again, this can be achieved through MOA or an MOU. So I want to end by sharing some pitfalls to a boy. And these I think it's five items I want to share with you. These things happen all the time. And so I would encourage you to be mindful of these things when you're trying to develop collaborative partnerships with HBCs will for that matter. MSI and a PZ HSI 1994 so on and so forth, lack of respect. That is usually one of the things that comes into play at the outset is a lack of respect. And I can tell you that those that HBC is pick up on that pretty quickly. The second thing is selfish motives. Most individuals think about what's in it for the PWI wasn't it from Michigan, what's in it for Illinois. Remember, we talked about this thing about wasn't it for the HBC you. So trying to have selfish motives lack of authentic engagement right we can all pick up on a lack of authentic engagement we are in meetings with individuals. And the same rule applies when you're engaging with institutions. If there's lack of authentic engagement, more than likely HBCs aren't going to want to collaborate and partner with you lack of understanding of HBC context remember I recall I shared that earlier, you have to understand institution, you have to understand. And I think cold calling just getting on the phone is a Alabama name, you want to work with me. Okay, like who are you, you know, those sorts of things so they ask who are you excuse me so cold calling usually doesn't work. It comes down to developing relationships to start with the relationships, and then that will kind of snowball into hopefully a long term relationship if you will. So what I want to do is, I like to end with this picture. I love this picture like if I could hang this on my wall in a room I would. And so this is a picture of our, I believe it's our 2019 class of maps summer scholars. And it's also you have individuals in here are team members. And so this is the last time we met in person which is 2019. And I can tell you that many of these individuals. If they aren't still at their HBCU, they're not working course but many have gone on to graduate school. And so for me to see this picture, the diversity that's represented here. This was not something you saw for the university, by large. And I'm not to say that I'm the only one doing this type of work, but in my college I can tell you that this is not a scene that you saw 12 years ago, it just wasn't. But it took time to get to this point I think this should be at maybe 35 scholars from eight institutions I believe. And again, I like this picture because it really represents the essence and reflects the work that we play have put into this program, and to see this and I think friends of many students, Instagram, you linked in your name, but to see this is just amazing to see where I'm starting with two institutions, and now nearly 10 years later, having 17 partners, 15 additional so. So, having said that, let me show this last slide, and I couldn't paste this and put it in the chat. Please listen if you have questions after today, just reach out this is a simple I will respond email tweet back at you I will. You know, hit me on Instagram. Here's our map website but I will cut and paste this and put into the chat so have a set that admin I'm down to 40 seconds left and there and let you and facilitate the Q&A so thank you. First kudos to you can finish in the time and in the in that confined period of time because I surely would have gone over so appreciate you for that. I can we just give another round of applause for Dr. Esther is thumbs up something just to indicate that you all are there. Very good. First, I just appreciate your time, energy and effort and sharing these things so you kind of just done my work for me in many ways because these are many conversations that I have across campus but of course you do so much more eloquently than I could do. So thank you. Thank you for that. We do have a couple of questions that kind of came through in a chat, I'll read them in order I'll try to group them together as best I can. The first question was one around compensation for students that you know, sort of, employ like the daily activities of maps so how do you compensate student leaders that manage the map program and then those that might work in smaller roles. So kind of say so all the students that you saw on that screen is first of all great question appreciate the question. All the students are graduate students they either my even currently in the past were graduate students so they already funded on the assistantship or fellowship through our department or through our college or through the grad school so so to clarify. So every student has a citizenship let's just start there. At least, well, the same is true for Dr now by game myself. If you are a graduate student of ours, being a part of map just comes as part of the territory. There's something required, and I will say that every student that has gotten the job. I can speak for my especially that to put that coordinated position on their red as mayor CV and those bulletin those bullets of what they had to carry out in that role was a difference maker when they interviewed. So there's a lot of value that came from them having this role as part of the map team so hopefully that responds to the question. If it doesn't feel free to put in the chat and then I can, I can, I can talk about it. Very cool. Thank you. So it's also no kind of engaging in the, the mentoring program at one level with us. It's also a professional academic development that you can. Yes, yes, without a doubt, without a doubt. Very cool. So we got another question around how do students come to participate in the map program so is there some sort of opt in opt out after confirming admissions or do they self nominate do faculty nominate. How do you get the students to kind of engage in the mentoring program. You mean how do I get, how do we engage. Not, not the team members that would you prefer don't make sure I'm clear on a big. Yeah, so the the actual mentees that are part of the map program so the participants not the necessarily. Oh yeah so so so the only, the only time the mentees, the role the mentee comes into play was through the peer mentor program. And in that case, touring would put out a call, and people will respond to the call they would apply if you will and touring you listen would manage that process and of course myself and I would would would look over the recommendations and then say yay and a but I can't recall us ever turned down a student. So it was a but one thing we did try to control was the number because one tour your list was students and they, they only have an infinite amount of time, a certain amount of time they could dedicate. So we kind of kept it at 12 students so that as far as the peer mentor program that's how we manage that now what I will say is that a lot of what students get from the map program is what they learned through those monthly webinars or seminars that you put on so they get a lot from those those experiences as well. Very cool thank you for that. And then we have a question from Omar Omar you want to want to go ahead and ask a question. So Dr s mistakes for doing this on our face and such a vice president for research economic development grass studies at Virginia State. And so I actually wanted to piggyback a little bit on your pitfalls slide. And that one of the things that we see a lot is folks are reaching out at the very last minute for an HBCU partner, which often feels like to be quite blunt about it you just need some brown on your proposal. And so that is the thing that you know, I would recommend that folks try to avoid you know if you want to be a legitimate partner or more than happy to partner with you but that is, you know, a thing that we run into way too often. So, thanks for that. Yeah, no I appreciate that the face on yeah, thanks for thanks for joining in today. And that happens all too often. And I'm glad you mentioned it and so I would, I would just encourage you as Dr face on said just mentioned, and you don't want to do that again I think it's probably connected to this lack of respect. And one thing for me. I can say that that never occurred with us because one I'm a project to institute so I understand, you know, you know, the landscape if you will so we've been fortunate enough but I see it happen across per university. People just you know, knock on my door they send emails a you got a HBC that we can collaborate with so yeah it does come across very disingenuous and so I would encourage you all not do that so thank you for that comment. And I'll just emphasize that again, that in the cold calling couple together just does not not work well. It just doesn't when folks say hey can you send us out to your contacts. It just doesn't just doesn't work well I haven't seen any success with that so I'll echo Sierra. My name is Sierra I'm a fourth year graduate student here at Michigan. Thank you for giving your talk also follow you on Twitter. My question is for students that are interested in the type of career that you have. What did your trajectory look like and what advice do you have I'm also a HBC grad I went to Winston-Salem State for undergrad. And Tony Larkin who's also on this call we started a nonprofit for HBCU students to support them through the transition to graduate school. So just trying to figure out how to continue that post graduate school and if that's a career path that I want to go into what does that look like. Yeah, great questions here. So, what's the same I'm saying yes show love HBCU things as I haven't been given a clap to do the same. So, let me tackle the first part of your question so as far as my trajectory. I knew early on I wanted to be a faculty member. And so that's where my career took me. My PhD at Penn State. Then I went to Iowa State I was there for five years and then came to Purdue in 2009. And so early my crowd was engaged with undergraduate education teacher education, in particular but that just wasn't my cup of tea. And so I had the opportunity to change my faculty appointment now only focus on grad education is all I do is graduate education I teach only grad courses. And the opportunity for me, you know, I knew I wanted to engage with HBCUs and help the college in this crew man retention spaces so me and my colleague Dr. Nobla kicked around the side. I had an idea to write a grant and then we had actually had a, so he and I did not come with the name Matt we had a grad student, Kristen Bob, shout out to Kristen Bob, who actually came with the name Matt, and then my self and Dr. Nobla just things just kind of spiral and now 10 years later I think it's fair to say that a lot of my brand identity and it wasn't intentional is attached to math attached to mentoring attached to graduation work with HBCUs people know me to be. But I think for you to the other question, there's a lot of room to work in this space. You see a resurgence, I hate saying that way but you do see a national resurgence if you will because the Kamala Harris, because of, I could get from Georgia, Stacey Abrams and lots of other folks right. In the NBA, I thought actually the good job this year with all star game, engaging Thurgood Marshall fun and UNCF so there's a space for this and I know lots of folks that do research in this space that practitioners in this space and so there's not. There's an overbundance of opportunity so I would encourage you just the key is to have a really good idea to be committed to it. And just to you know to reach out, people like myself and others and think of ways that you can, you know, carve out your niche or your language you will, and to stick to it. I think if you do that, I think good things will come and give you talk offline if you want after this but I think for me, that's what I've learned and that thing that's the advice I would give you that there is more than enough opportunities and I think if that's what you want to do that's your passion lies. You just stay with it. Thank you. Yeah, I'm going to go back to the chat really quickly for a couple questions that came through there. So one was around. How do you manage the the relationships with so many institutions. How do you kind of keep them meaningful across those institutions and I think like a second part of that is one centered around authenticity like how do you engage. How do you use PCUs and other MSIs in authentic ways, and then manage that relationship over time with multiple institutions. Yeah, that's a good question. No one's ever asked that question. So, a couple of things we do. So, we engage with these institutions now mind you we just added probably a good, I don't know, six in the last month, but what we try to do is we try to engage all institutions in some of our core activities so we invite them to learn our webinars and seminars. We encourage them to send students to our map summer scholars program. So, given the students opportunities with the mentor program. We try to get our grant projects like the mentor when he gauges them so we try to share as many opportunities now. Again at the end of the day we don't want to force Alabama State or Alabama and M or, or Delaware State to engage, but we do share opportunities. But at the very least, if they don't pursue those opportunities, the fact that they can participate through our webinars and learn how they can impact the culture and help students at their institutions is one way. So, we engage with these students to our summer scholars program. I think those probably the two leading ways that we kind of engage with those institutions but at the end of the day is their choice. But I do think that one of the reasons why I'll give you a good example, Kentucky State, we just added Kentucky State three weeks ago. One of the reasons that what compelled them to want to participate was being able to provide their students with opportunities or access to graduation and to learn about what grad school is about, because a lot of students of first generation. They may be the first and who have an interest in grad school but they don't know much about grad school so I think that was one of the compelling reasons for Kentucky State to want to come aboard and work with us. Thank you for that. I always like to say acting good faith. So, especially from the front and front end so go into it without the expectation of something in return so just engage off of just good faith and continue to engage over time. This institution may not want to work with you but if you're acting from a space of good faith and then all is right with within the world, and they do decide to engage with you kind of just, you know, continue on through sustained opportunities and resources as as Levan pointed out. So thank you for that. We have time for one more question so Dan you're going to be our closer here today. Thanks Levan for that great talk. I'm just curious, you know, there is an imbalance between particularly physical research resources at an R1 institution in HBCUs and so many of our programs are designed to bring students here for instance for an opportunity. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are and how that can be done better, so that you avoid the little brother syndrome, like, by, by, you know, it's almost like approaching saying you have to come here to get a more meaningful experience than you could get at your own HBCU. That's a good question. So thank you for that. Well I think to one thing I think, I think there's a lot of value and because I've heard students share about why I went to Illinois. So I taught high school in Chicago at the Chicago High School of Science Sciences. And we had a lot of students that went to Illinois, Michigan State, Minnesota. I always say for these some research opportunities they will come back and say, Wow, Mr. Esters, I learned so much I do think there's some value in that. And I think the other thing that could occur is people like yourself and others going to those institutions, and maybe you have something to make like a faculty and residents where you spend a semester or some type of research exchange where you're giving back and helping faculty and working on projects, building their capacity. So I think if you do those sorts of things, then, yeah, they're still going to be in balance but I do think that you're moving the needle a little bit because, you know, you are investing your time and energy and also they could be some good that comes out of it by new idea for new type of polls or new course, anytime, you know, all sorts of things I think come out of those relationships. Thank you, Pat. And I just want to point out highlight Omar's response in the comments to consider collaborations with faculty at the HPC on at the HPC campus and again as there's evidence of those types of things that's taking place. I think there's evidence on the call from political science and with Jackson State University of Puerto Rico, they're using their MSI grant dollars to provide research type and students at those institutions right so again I think there are ways to engage and what you kind of get at I think is the question around being intellectually responsive. Not only in the cultural part but there's also this, this thing between like the elitist, Michigan's and Northwestern's and producer the world, and how we, you know, walking to these spaces with with HPC us and again, these are folks who hold PhD PhDs in the same spaces that you hold them in right so they, they are, you know, being intellectually and engaging in intellectually responsive ways also critically important to know that in the research can take place in different spaces, given, you know, notwithstanding that Michigan may have some sort of equipment that perhaps the HPC doesn't but research can still take place at the HPC. We are just at time. So again, another round of calls for Dr. S is here for his time, energy and effort this afternoon. I am greatly appreciative of him. I will echo his sentiments to reach out. Every time I reach out, he responds, which not everybody does so I'm always appreciative of him, you know, kind of reaching out. Thank you all for tuning in. I think again Dr. S is appreciate your efforts. We have another coffee chat coming up next week if you all are interested in attending. Next week, Wednesday, April 7 same time with Dr. Jasmine Collins from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and she'll talk about inclusive and responsive teaching practices particularly around social political events in the classroom, and how to support students in that way. So I encourage for you all to join us for for that as well. So again, thank you Dr. S is thank you all for your, your attention here this afternoon. Thank you, you all be well. Thanks again, Evan. Thank you. Hey Dan. I don't know if you saw but they just released the Biden infrastructure plan. I haven't seen it yet. No, there's about, I would, I didn't add it all up but there's about 40 to $50 billion specifically for MSIs. Okay, kind of creating center. I think I sent you one of those things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's actually now also in the Biden infrastructure plan. Okay, I'm a follow up on that today. I want to see how it all plays out but it's pretty cool. They're going to, you know, try to create these centers of excellence and stuff and have a certain percentage of them be targeted towards HBCUs. I think it'll be, which is important opportunities for growing this program. Yeah, that's that's my next goal. My next goal is to think about how we shift away from institutional funding and get larger or get support from like other like foundations and other agencies right because that's the next step. I think, I think you all are all doing important work and your respective spaces. You know, here I think what he's doing with Jackson State University Puerto Rico is great. And there's other examples out there is as well. But again, from a sustainability perspective we got to figure out like how do we take these smaller buckets of $8,000 or $30,000 and think about like how can we get $150,000 grant per program for a five year period of time right or three year whatever it may be. I think everybody is just joining. They must be on central time so let's know that's just me turning on my camera sorry I'm having a bad hair day. No, that's okay we have somebody from just joining in. Just real quickly on that and before I forget, I'm glad you brought that up. I've got a foundation that the LSNA Development Office told me about who is interested in these sorts of things so let's talk about that soon. Yes, yes, yes. You know how I work just send me an invite I'll be there. We'll do. Thanks for this. This was awesome. What he's doing is just incredible. I'm trying. I don't know if I could do it without without you all in the work you're doing so. I appreciate it. All right, be good. You two take care. Hi Natasha, how are you. So I think. Hi Natasha, how are you. Hi, how are you. I'm doing well. Can you hear me okay where you are you joining us for a coffee chat today. Yes, I am. Okay, so are you are you on central time. Yes. Okay, so the mistake is on my part it was that it was 3pm Eastern time I apologize, but we did record it so I'm happy to I'm happy to share the recording with you if you're interested in that or if you just want to chat further at some point. I'll send me the recording. I'd love to hear it. I admit, LaVon not too long ago, my cousin. Okay, I was really interested to hear but that's so funny. Yeah. And you know, I asked her to I said is this Eastern or central, because they're all in Indiana. Yeah, where are you where are you coming calling from. I'm calling from Chicago from Chicago. Okay, very cool. Chicago, I call Chicago my home, but my second home rather but Chicago is perhaps one of my most favorite places in the world, so. Okay. Yeah, yeah, so interested to hear like other feedback because like for instance, I'm calling actually from my company. I'm the coordinator for our business resource group called able alliance of black employees. Yeah. So I was calling the you know the here's some information get some feedback see, see what people are talking about because we are looking to partner with universities, you know to make that connection. Yeah, get more inclusive talent so. I think that's great. Talking to LaVon what what 100% be a great thing that maybe the opportunities, depending on like what kind of talent you're looking for and when I say that I mean by like, like major skill set like that type of thing right. There may be opportunities connect with some of the programs that doing here doing things here and think about like the graduate students who are coming from HBC us into graduate programs here. And for folks. Yeah, because we are a manufacturing plant. Oh, so a corn manufacturing plant so we're looking for engineers technicians operators and some also with science backgrounds for our labs. Very cool. Yeah, I should get your contact information if you don't mind. Yeah, are you able to drop it in the chat or would you. I'll give you my email with that work better. I can do both. Yeah, I'm sorry when you click then I said up she probably thought that it was. And that's, that's my mistake because I know that in some spaces I know that it is in. Eastern standard or Eastern daylight. I clearly missed somewhere so. Not a problem I got your email now so definitely look out for an email from me and I can send you more information of what we're looking at. Very cool thanks so much. Thank you thank you for chiming in to let me know that what's going on. I wouldn't let you hang around and by yourself. Thank you so much. Thank you you have a good one. You too. Bye bye.