 My name is Fantasy Nicole Curry. I'm a PhD student in engineering education and I am a black engineer. My research aim and the reason for me coming to Purdue is to study the experiences of black engineers so that I can create policies and interventions that will help alleviate some of the burdens and barriers that we experience in a system that was built on inequalities based on race. The first moment at Purdue that I was reminded that I was a black engineer was when I was referred to as a rare creature as a black scholar. However, it was at that same moment that I realized the amount of support that I actually get from my school of engineering education and the offices that actually try to cultivate, recruit and retain black engineers. It wasn't someone coming in and like pointing me out and saying like, hey, you're a black or, you know, hey, you're a woman or you're a black woman or you can't be an engineer. It was stuff like when I was questioned in a room, like a board room, like or if I'm having a meeting, people are looking at me wondering why I'm sitting in there with, you know, all of these white men and it's like because I belong here. Like I was invited to the party and I'm an engineer as well. But, you know, it's those minor things that they don't realize are macro to us. And like so it might be a it might be like a minor offense to you. But again, intent is not the same as impact. So a lot of times you may say something and it may have a it may like turn into a mountain from this little molehill that you created. But it becomes something so much bigger for us. It becomes something where you may say, oh, like I didn't I didn't know you could wear your hair that color. Like I didn't know black people look good with that color. And then like that may affect the way I choose my hair color for like the next two months because I'm like wondering like, oh my God, like are people going to look at me and think that I'm weird because of my hair color? Are people going to look at me and think that I'm weird because I'm an engineer? You know, so there are a lot of things like that that we experienced that people don't realize because a lot of it is internal and it's it's brewed up in the way in like our actions in the way that we see ourselves in the way that we feel like we belong somewhere. Instead of just being like a blatant on my face, like I don't like you for saying that. A lot of times we try to keep that stuff inside because we don't know how that's going to affect our grade in the class. We don't know how that's going to affect, you know, our ability to get a letter of recommendation, which are things we need when we go into industry, when we go into grad school, when we try to get into this system that's already built on inequalities that, you know, affect us because of our race. You know, I can't hide the fact that I'm black because it is literally on me. Like, you know, you look at me and you could tell that I'm black. You know, and so I think that's the difference between like what we experienced a lot and like what other people try to like minimize in our lives. Number one, I would love to see more black faculty members, black faculty and staff, you know, just minority faculty and staff in general. I know that there are certain departments that do a pretty good job with gender, but I would like to see the same thing with race. And not that, you know, once we get a black faculty member, everything gets put on them to do to handle the black kids or the black students or the black whoever. But just more representation is always good. You know, like when you go out to recruit, they usually send someone like if I'm going to an all male school, you know, or if I'm trying to recruit from an all male school, I would probably send a male. You know, if I'm trying to recruit from a woman's college, I would probably send a woman so that they can see themselves. And if we can't see ourselves in these particular roles, then how can we like how can you expect us to want to like go to grad school or want to do work in industry? Like, I don't see anybody that looks like me. I don't want to be the only one and have that burden put on me to have to do everything. And that's one of the things that I felt in industry. I felt like I was burdened with like, like the task was on me to represent my entire race. And so that's a very uncomfortable feeling and it makes you feel like you're never good enough because you have to represent everybody. And so that's that's one of the things I definitely think that there could be more representation at a higher level, as well as, you know, having someone come in outside of the department, like have someone who, you know, specializes in policymaking for diversity, or, you know, that deals with systemic inequalities, and they know, like, what type of policies can affect someone if they're black, or if they're brown, or if they come from a low socioeconomic status or anything like that. There are a lot of things that affect us that trickle is not like a minor like, oh, like you graduate high school, you don't have the grades. Usually it's because like they come from an area where they're not taught that, you know, they're not taught what they need to do in order to get into an engineering school or a grade school like Purdue, they're not taught that. So how would they know how to cultivate themselves from the time that they're five if they never had anybody that's done that? You know, and for me, I'm the only black engineer in my family. I'm the only person that has ever gone for their PhD in my family. Like, so these are like major things that, you know, I'm the only engineer in my family. So these are major things that, you know, my child will have that experience whenever I have children, but I didn't have that growing up. I told my mom that I wanted to be an administrative assistant in the 11th grade. She asked me what I wanted to be and that's what I said because that's what I saw black women doing. And it was, I was happy with that. I love writing. I love journaling. I love answering the phones. I felt like I would be a cute, you know, office assistant and I was happy doing that. And my mom was like, no, like I'm not taking out student loans for you to go be somebody secretary. So you need to think again. And my counselor, you know, I told her about the conversation and she said, well, go to this summer camp. And that's how I found out about engineering. I was going into the 12th grade. I, you know, I knew nothing about it. So I think that, you know, representation recruitment, you know, the outreach, like there needs to be funding that goes towards things like that if you really want to increase it. Like you can't say that you want more black students and just look at the applicants that you have. You can't say you want more black students and go to a high school that's primarily white and think that you're going to recruit every student because every university that's looking for black students right now, they're probably going to go to the schools that they already go to. And they're all looking at those five, six black students that are there. And so there's a high possibility that they may not come wherever, you know, we will want them to be. But definitely having like that outreach, like reaching back prior to now, prior to high school, reaching out in industry and like getting recommendations, like there are black people that work here. Like have they ever been talked to to ask like, hey, do you know anybody that specializes in this that we could, you know, at least inviting for an interview, you know, and so I think that there are a lot of things that that can be worked on, but those are a few things that I see.