 Happy Wednesday, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on where you are in the world. I'm excited, excited, excited, a little nervous to be moderating, but I know that I know Mackenzie and Naim will have my back and we'll move this conversation along. But my name is Minnie Quartey-Unnan. I am a doctoral candidate at Georgetown University and I am the Senior Director of Impacts and Innovation at Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Washington. And today this panel conversation actually is really going to be about what happens beyond the academy, right? What happens when you decide not to go into the classroom or into administration? What are some other things that you can do? Or even if you decide to go back, return after some time. So we're really going to engage and we really want the chat to be popping. We want you to, if you have some comments and you want to unmute, please let Marcus know raise your digital hand or raise your church finger, whatever you need to do. And we're going to just have a really, really good time for the next 82 minutes and really make this about a conversation because at the end of the day, we want to, we want to share information. And the only way we can do that is if we all participate. So we're going to go ahead and get started. I want, if our two other conversationalists could introduce themselves and then I'll jump into a couple of questions and then we will most definitely ask you guys to participate. So Mackenzie and then Naeem, please. Certainly. Hi, my name is Mackenzie Price and thank you so much for having me. I'm based in Washington DC. I completed my doctorate at Georgetown when 2017, maybe it took some time. I was there for a while, but that's and met some fantastic people. I am so still based in Washington DC. I'm an interactional sociolinguist by training. That's what I call myself. Sometimes I also call myself a language strategist. And I am currently a consultant that's focused on messaging, strategy and communicating about race and diversity and inclusion. Before I started doing this type of consulting work, I had a brief stint as an adjunct professor at the business school in Georgetown. I was teaching qualitative research methods. And I after, well, now I'm about to go on a tangent, but something that's also been a part of my experience outside of academia is kind of having a main hustle and a side hustle. So some of the activities that I've been doing overlap and I forget how they've overlapped. But anyway, in addition to doing that, I also spent some time working at a think tank here in Washington DC. So have been doing a lot of consulting and qualitative research outside of the academy. Thanks for having me. So I guess it's my turn. Hello, everyone. My name is Naeem Tyson. I received my doctorate from the Ohio State University before before Mackenzie way before Mackenzie. But I too struggled a little bit and I was in the I was a doctoral student for quite some time. Most of my work revolves around machine learning and natural language processing. Currently, I am a data scientist and machine learning engineer for a small startup called pie metrics. And I am an assistant adjunct professor in the department of computer science at NYU, where I teach introduction to computer programming to undergraduates. Most of my professional work started before my doctoral studies. I received my master's in computational linguistics from Georgetown. And I was fortunate enough to start my career during the comm boom. So since then, I have been a programmer all throughout for, let's just say for a very long time. While I was a doctoral student, most of my internships had to do with technology pertaining to natural language processing. And then once I became a doctoral candidate, I had jobs working as a software engineer or as a data scientist. And so that's what brings me here today. And thanks for having me. Thank you both Mackenzie and Naeem most definitely affected my time at Georgetown in the most positive of ways. So I'm so glad to see her on the call and to be able to have this moment with her. And I didn't introduce myself in the way of schooling. So I went to Georgetown for undergrad. I got my master's at Georgetown. I went to teachers Georgetown. So I left Georgetown so I could come back as faculty. And I started my doctoral program at Michigan State. And I got to work with Geneva Smitherman, which was one of the most life changing, wonderful experiences ever for me. And then life happened literally and figuratively, I had my daughter who's very, very sick. So I walked away from academia all together. And and then so unlike the other two panelists, I actually did not start my role as I didn't get my job as a linguist. I actually use linguistics at my job. So it's a little different. And once I was kind of rebuilding my life and figuring out my next steps, a friend of mine from college said, hey, we have this job opening in DC. So I ended up back in I applied for the job, I didn't get that job. And I ended up being the supervisor of that job a couple months later. And so I came back to DC. And I was like, I need to finish this degree. And so I reached out to Georgetown and they're like, we're happy to have you back. So I was able to come back to Georgetown. And it's good to hear that other people are having struggles. And it took a while to get the to get the final step. So it has taken me a while. Life has literally thrown so many curveballs. But I think that's what we're going to talk about today is being successful. It's part of that is being resilient. And so here I am. And and we're going to just kind of throw some questions to the to the panelists. But as you have questions, I mean, I have my my script here or my my list of questions. But we most definitely want to make this useful for you. So throw your questions in the chat box. But first, I just want to I want to ask both Mackenzie and Naim. How did you kind of end up in your current role? But also what has been the most challenging and the most successful in your current space outside of outside of the academy? Well, I ended up where I currently am as a combat two forces converge. So one is I was in a really toxic work environment and knew that I needed to get out of it. And kind of got to the place where I was going to leave it with and just just figure it out after the fact. And then the other force that converge, which I think is useful for a panel like this is that networks and networking really does work. And so I knew someone who knew of a a kind of consulting project that needed someone. And they reached out to me and I said, Yes, I'll do it. And and that's how I got where I am right now. In terms of what has been a success, I think that something that being a something that I think to put it in linguistics terms, I think actually being a variationist at the beginning of my linguistics career was helpful and being able to and one of the things that that well, one of the things that that helped me with and afforded was being able to have a lot of experience explaining that language is a tool for studying other things. People ask you, you're a variationist, what are you going to do with that? And being able to explain why I care so much about different pieces of language, why I care so much about data. And what does that mean for you? And so just having practice explaining, yes, I study this thing. But here's what I'm going to do for you with it has been really, has been really useful. And also even more specifically, a part of my experience as a variationist was talking really explicitly about what the relationship is between language change, race, colonialism, conflict. And that is absolutely I do that all day every day is explain how all these things relate to each other. And I couldn't have done that without being the type of linguists that I have been. So I ended up at pie metrics, due to, I guess, my falling out of sorts with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. And as a former employee, I still have to say this, that the opinions that I have are of my own and do not reflect those of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. I was previously a data engineer there, and I was working on some natural language processing projects. So my background as a linguist actually did help working there in that capacity. However, I was not satisfied with the level of service that I was providing to the institution, it had changed drastically since I had started there, from software projects to more support based projects. And so I decided to leave there and look for other opportunities, particularly as a data scientist or in machine learning. So after a few failed attempts, I ended up finding a landing spot with pie metrics. The most challenging part of being back in the space again is the fact that the technology is moving at a pace that I would say is almost, and I hate to use this hackney term, but it's almost unprecedented how quickly some of these new language technologies get pushed out. And the fact that the field has sort of shifted from your traditional linguistics underpinnings to more sophisticated structures such as artificial neural networks. But I think with enough training and enough persistence that it can be done and can learn these new technologies and apply them to your own work. Thank you both. I think it's really, really interesting how both of you kind of talk about leaving a space because of various factors and unfortunately negative. And I know all the time we don't transition from one job or one career to another because of negative experience, but in many cases that is whether it be people, whether it be the environment, whether it be a certain task or a certain mindset that the organization or that the people in the organization or the leadership have. So one of the things that I know all of us have seen and kind of this idea and these mindsets and these shifts that we're looking at now is DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion. And I kind of want to get in the sense from you, Mackenzie, Naeem, and if others want to join in because I think this is a really good point of conversation. They're quite pervasive, right? They're everywhere, good, bad, or otherwise. And so I want to ask you, in your opinion, do you feel the DEI work at your organization or at your, maybe not at your current organization, your past organization, do you feel like it's performative or is it productive? And anyone can chime in here because I think part of this as we think about how are you going to be successful, a lot of these opportunities and these ideas about diversity and bringing different kinds of people in and making sure everyone has a chance and making sure everyone feels included, are we just writing something to write it or are we actually writing something to put it in place? So I want to know for you in your current spaces or your past spaces, if you don't want to speak on your current situation, do you feel like they've been performative and we're checking boxes or do you feel like they've actually produced some great, promising results? Well, I can start with this one if you don't mind, Mackenzie. So I'll start from the present and I'll work myself, work my way back. So Pi Metrics basically is a human resource, AI talent matching platform where we try to create machine learning models that reduce the amount of bias in hiring. And so with that by design, the organization has to deal with these DEI initiatives. What is unique about their approach is that they're highly, they sort of outsource some of it in the sense that they've reached out to another organization to track, if you will, some of the initiatives that have been started because there's volunteer work and there's also work that's done internally and then some people also can have donations to other organizations. And so it's really refreshing because it's a commitment that even though it's done by design, there are people who devote some of their own work time to diversity within the organization. If you take that experience and you compare it to my time at the Federal Reserve, Bank of New York, I would say that quite a bit of the most recent DEI activities have been reactionary and not necessarily performative. And what I mean by that is during the time of the protests that followed the murder of George Floyd, they sort of stepped up their activities. And what I mean by that is that they had sort of town halls where people were allowed to speak their mind with a facilitator that was from outside of the Fed. Well, I see the conflict in this and that the Fed and the entire Federal Reserve system basically is a verse to getting involved in socio-political movements. And so this is something that they will consistently struggle with. However, in some cases they did sort of turn a blind eye to some of the political activities that some employees felt obliged to engage in, that is protests and certain other types of positive activism. So I will see that type of organization always struggling. However, they do do some performative measures with their affinity groups and also outside of those affinity groups. In thinking about my experience, I've seen a few different things kind of across my time. But if I start in the present, so I'm a consultant and the current project that I am working on was created in the wake of George Floyd's murder and the organization that I'm doing this project for, thinking about what their responsibility to both their employees and also to the wider public was. And so if you can look at that set of facts and say that my work is a part of a new chapter in DEI work, you could definitely look at it that way. Sometimes I look at it that way, and sometimes I don't. But I've also been present in an organization as a staff member, someone who worked there when an organization considered starting a DEI kind of work and both deciding to do it like follow through. And they've also been present when they've thought about it and said, no, that's not something we need to do. And so it's hard to take that example and use it to answer the question you asked. Do I think this is performative or not? I suppose I'm not really sure what I think about that quite yet. But I've seen and, you know, I've seen when I think even further back and think about my experience as a graduate student. And I think as a graduate student, I had the experience of people who I was in school with assuming that my presence in the institution must mean that the department was going through some kind of DEI initiative. Otherwise, why would I be there? Which like, let's be clear, that's ridiculous and grossly offensive. But yeah, I've, I, those are some of the things that I've seen. I don't think I really answered your question, but I did share. So hopefully that works. No, I, I, and as I said a few minutes ago about you and Jesse Greaser being very much transformative and influential in the program, because after you left, I was the only one. And at Georgetown, and I think really those that what you just said really speaks to, it's not necessarily answering the question, but it's your thoughts. And I think it's really about these spaces. And I don't think this is a cut and dry. Let's answer the question if we can peg that the work that we're doing, the statement that we put out, or you just put in the statement out because we have to check a box or you put in the statement out because now you're going to put some infrastructure behind it to actually promote change. And so what I like, what I really appreciate it was when I said it wasn't necessarily performative, but it was reactionary. And unfortunately, the problem is, is I think many times we become firefighters, right, instead of making the house flame retardant. So we, we instead of like saying, you know what, we're going to make sure that we help create a infrastructure, we create a system around making sure that we include others and we create an environment that in bodies, different people, when something comes up, such as the murder of George Floyd, or even when we were dealing with Ferguson and how that set a different spark of responses, we reacted to it and we didn't have something in place to say, you know, what now let's talk about this and how does this fit in our current structure, we had to build something, we had to create something. And that's why you see, you see that. And even here I work with an organization, our employees, we have about 120 employees. And our peak we have about 200 over the summer. And it's about 75% non non white for our employees and our young people that we serve are 92% white. And I think we are getting to a place now as we're shifting our culture here, but even as an organization that serves a lot of black and brown staff and young people, we're very much behind. And we are very much reactionary. And I think in some ways we have been performative, we say the right things, because because we're we hide behind a brand. And I think I think that in the last, for me, and I'm actually at work and I'm very comfortable about saying this because I've shared this right. And so it's, I'm not saying anything that I haven't said to to leadership into HR. But I think what's really, really important is how do we become the biggest advocates in the room and the biggest action, like the biggest forces of action for young people and our staff. So they see that we're not just putting up a statement on our website. But we're doing this each and every day in the 15 sites that we serve in our virtual space. And so I really like this idea. I don't like that this is this is the reality, but I really like the way you articulated that nighting that is reactionary. And maybe not as performative. Once it is cut and dry performance, performance, but in some case, we are just reacting to what's happening, as opposed to creating these intentional, I think, as Alexa said, these intentional spaces and conversations and systems around how do we do this work? I want to, does anyone in the audience have anything that want to add to that to articulate? So I want to build on that question in a different kind of way. All right, so thinking about and I think Alex, you alluded to this in the chat kind of thinking about these affinity groups or these employee resource groups, right? Like, do they do you feel like so Black, African American, certain gender identities in the workplace, Asian, Asian American? Has anyone really for McKinsey and for Nyeem and others who may have experienced this have any of you do your jobs offer these types of groups? Also, if so, what has been your experience and and then have they been useful? Have they been helpful? Have they been harmful? So if you've experienced them, what has been your experience? And do you think it's a positive or negative one? And then I want to open that up to others because I know organizations, academies may all function a little differently. So I want to ask McKinsey and Nyeem first, but I would like some others to I would like some others to respond as well because I think this is a really important conversation about about kind of the space, the space of the professional space. Sure. So I've never been a part of a formal, you know, employee resource group. So either either they have not existed or or I haven't been able to join one because as a consultant who mostly works on a contract or freelance space, I'm not a full time employee, which means that I'm not able to participate when these kinds of in those kinds of groups. Now that I mean, I mean, that scenario tells you a lot about that's another important, the structure of labor is another important piece of this conversation about equity and inclusion. But I've never been a part of a formal resource group. Now, I have been, of course, a part of the like informal, you know, meeting after the meeting of the, you know, the people and the folk. But no, I've never been a part of a employee resource group. So I too had that same issue when I first started at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where as a contractor, I could not participate in those those types of groups. However, once I became full time, I was able to do so. The issue that I had with our affinity groups, and this goes back to the theme of being performative versus being productive, in that they would they check all the boxes they are funded in the sense that they have speakers come in and talk at you. But they do not sort of facilitate dialogues and definitive actions that occur after the meeting. And so I alluded to before the conversation or the that we had about the social upheaval going on at the time, that should have been a discussion that should have gone on way before the George Floyd murder. And because this has been a consistent theme with that in this country, however, the affinity group I was associated with, for some reason did not decide to make it a part of their agenda throughout the year. Now, at my current position, there seems to be the issue of the forest versus the trees. So yes, there are diversity initiatives within the organization at a very high level. However, at the level of the trees, which you don't see the engagement or the continued engagement with affinity groups of color within the organization. Now, I have my theories as to why that is the case, one theory being that we're all remote, and we don't necessarily have the opportunities to do that on an ongoing basis. There also is a slack channel. But the problem with the slack channel is that it's it's sort of it's the equivalent of a breakout room in zoom. You have to be assigned in order to feel included and not it's not necessarily a inclusion by your own your own choice. And the affinity group that is and it's called the Latinx group. Well, the problem is is that I'm not Latinx. So it doesn't any conversations there don't necessarily apply to me. So I can only call it an affinity group in name, but not in its own action. For others who are in the Academy or beyond, do you have anything that you want to add? And Ashley and Jordan, we most definitely will circle back when you are ready. I could go ahead and chime in really quickly just on the ideas of being performative, of being reactionary rather than being prepared. And I have definitely tried to reflect on that myself and I try to talk to others about how I'm handling certain situations. But I do feel that it's performative. And sometimes I feel like it's that same kind of imposter syndrome situation. And I don't know if you all can kind of check in on that. But in some cases, when I haven't really seen others demonstrating or modeling, I do get that sense of being performative. But am I in fact actually setting up better practices? Or am I perpetuating like you said more and more so being performative? I don't know if anyone else can. The point about demanding better practices and keeping the the the frankly advocacy and internal activism around practices is really important. And I think that that is that is what being of course, you know, being able to change practice and how it is that people inside of organizations and institutions are going to, you know, relate to one another. Like that's the I think for me some of the, in a lot of cases, that's the ultimate the ultimate goal and the ultimate work and is a lot of again, in my experience, some of what gets talked about in in the pre meeting and the post meeting is, you know, how how did what relates to the the meeting? Or what happened in the meeting? How does that relate to things that we don't see need to see want to see are going to keep pushing for and talking about? And and how can we change practice to match what we know would create a better a better experience? I posted a little bit but at the University of Arizona we've been dealing with this and all of this is in I think most of it at least is in response to George Floyd and Brianna Taylor. And it's an opportunity that's come along where the C-suite is really is is ready to have conversations and to do things. But I was smiling because of the post about, you know, the small of the small amount of money that gets gets done. So what I tried to do, I'm the one who got stuck with like doing all of the organizing. So I was like, you know, I came from an institution UTSA where we had a black faculty and staff association and I served in that and then I came to University of Arizona and black folk don't really get together and do anything. And I was like, no, we got to change that black women got to come together, we got to do stuff, we got to go out to brunch and all of this and then of course the pandemic hit and shut a lot of stuff down. And then, you know, freedom summer came and then I feel like institutions were ready to have conversations that they weren't necessarily engaging in any real way before. And so what was what was difficult for me is having to say the same thing over and over. Right, it's like, none of this is new. Don't ask me to do work. Like don't ask me to teach you how to do better when this is not new. Go find it. Your researchers, your scholars, you can't find a book, you don't know how to use a database to find the stuff that you want when it comes to this. Right, so that's kind of been my constant thing with that. But the fact that they're at the table and listening and I've seen movement, of course, they deal with the easy stuff first, right? Okay, we'll give you money for a Sankofa move. I didn't want to say I don't need to say like, I don't I was like, I don't need you to help me get black folks together. We can come together on our own. What I do need to do is make like substantive change, right? And that's where the difficult conversations come in. And so we've seen some movement on that, right, you know, they're committing to a cluster hire, they're committing to creating something like the UC postdocs. They're committing to, you know, one of the other things is we that's come up in here is about people's inequitable statuses. And so one of the things that push for was their faculty here right now, who are contingent faculty who want to be to your track faculty, let's, you know, let's shop here first. And so they've done some of that as well. So there, you can see some change, some things that are going on, but it really, you know, getting the big stuff, like, you know, we need to deal with, you know, these inequitable tenure promotion guidelines, like, that's a real thing, right? We need to deal with these problems with funding, we are, we are on Native American land. It's a land grant institution. You stole this land, right? And the, you know, another thing that's contributed to this are the faux pas by people in the C suite, like the provost and the president, the provost actually at one point said to where they were meeting with the Native American group and told them, Oh, we give all of this money to Indigenous communities. And, you know, we'll never ever get that money back. And I'm just like, you know, so they had to like sit through a meeting, the Native student group that did this had the faculty members and people from the community and a meeting with the provost and essentially lecturing them on this is how you messed up. And so they're having to like do all of this work now. But it's like, this is not new, you've made these things, you've done these mistakes, you've done these things before, but at least now we can hold, try to hold you accountable. But it really is about, you know, people have to show up, and they have to stick together and say, you know, we're going to hold you accountable for the work that you need to do. No, I think, I think so many of the things that you just said, Sandra, and I remember I came to you for some advice about a year ago and you were very consistent in that advice. And to hear and almost using the exact same words and to hear, to hear you say it again, I think it really resonates is we know how to do the research is just about what we're researching. And what we choose to research and what we choose to find the solutions to and what we choose to, or even not even find the solutions, but what we choose to try to solution. And it's not all about, it's not all about getting the right answer, but it's that you're trying to get there and that you're making an effort, and not just assuming that someone else will do the work. And I did see a question in the chat box about about leaving. And I think that depends on a couple of things. One, depending on your personality, I'm very outspoken about things. And you can also, and I think Mackenzie talks about how she framed it as that she can't be successful here. And because I am outspoken, I often advocate for people who aren't or for people who feel like that they may be a jeopardy for some retribution, maybe losing their job or something like that. And I'm not saying that I'm invincible or I'm indisposable, but I know that there's a lot more security in me being here than some others. And like I said, I'm not invincible by any means, but sometimes just having others that you advocate for, we had a diversity training a while back and they were talking about what do you think is contributing to this space in a way that's that like Mackenzie said, not helping you be successful. Or when people think about diversity, how do you feel hindered? And so one lady talks about not having kids and the other lady talked about having kids, right? So because I have kids, I can't participate in a lot of these just, you know, random things that pop up or these after after five or whenever she gets off at six after six, because I have to go home and be mom and wife. And the other the other young woman said, I feel discriminated against because I don't have kids and we, you know, and because I don't have that family. So I get extra work because people know I have time and I have availability. And and so it's really this idea of what what are we doing to be to think about diversity and what are we doing to set people up in whatever their spaces they are in, right? Whatever your situation is in, I think, I think you have to articulate boundaries. I think boundaries really do help kind of this notion of being successful and saying, although I don't have X or although I do X, that doesn't mean like every person that does X is just like me. And I think I think that's one of the things that we can't just lump everyone together. And I think that's the harmful thing about affinity groups and and also the helpful thing at the same time. I think because we're all black, we're assumed that we're all going to have the same experiences or because we're all women, we're going to all have the same experiences. We may have commonalities and we may have common, we may have some shared experiences, but I think we have to be very, very careful not to to lump everybody in the same kind of mold. And and one of the things is I spoke, I do some consulting work as well. And I was, I did a the Black Association, I can't remember the exact name, but for a pretty large company, asked me to come into a training about to their to their group about how do we talk to people who essentially what they were, they didn't say it like this, but it kind of came across like this. And I had to help them re reframe and reshape their thinking about like when people come in and be in their ghetto. Like, what does that mean? Like, let's unpack ghetto, like let's unpack all of these things. What are you saying? And so this is the black group, right? And they're saying, well, I hate working with other black cuffs, like I hate when black customers come in because, you know, they make it a bad name. And so we have to unpack, like, what does all mean? And why, why are you even coming here? And I think, unfortunately, I don't think it should have just been the black affinity, right? It needed to be others who come and have these same kinds of thoughts, because this is coming from somewhere. This is not just an internal thinking. And now you've also helped perpetuate this thinking inside of the organization. So I think that when we think about these, these groups and think about this work that we're doing, I think Sandra's very much right. It's not about us doing the work for, but it's really about, it's really about in telling others, go do the work, you know, how to do the work if you wanted to. And really, and not saying that you can't be a presence. And however, you may, you know, decide to navigate in that space, but understanding your boundaries, I think success comes with establishing boundaries and sticking to them. Because I wasn't very good at that initially. And I think that that was a downfall. Something else that I've been thinking about over just over the last few minutes in this, in the discussion is, you know, conversations that I part, like the conversation about why people can't succeed and how that relates to the other point about changing policy and practice that we've been talking about. And one of the ways that, so if I take a step back, I think in places that I've been in or around where I've seen some kind of inclusion or equity or diversity movement on, I've seen just from a strategy perspective, I've seen organizations and people inside of organizations kind of leverage this incredibly terrible myth that companies and institutions are, like, friendly and that, you know, we're a team and we're a family, like, not true. But people do leverage that myth to say if this is an organization that because we, you know, our family has to care about and be very intentional about how we relate to one another. And because we spend a lot of our time here, then this has to be a place that is not, like, psychologically violent, but is at least, it's not psychologically violent and is a place where we can be and be and be okay. And even that conversation. And so that, as I see it, can be a strategy for opening up a conversation about what are some of the things that make this a, like, tolerable environment or not. And the conversation about is this tolerable, I think, I hope can make some progress on being able to show people in leadership positions that it isn't just enough to, like, have me on your staff, like, I have to not hate coming to work every day. And, and that connects directly to specific policies. And in an instance that came to mind is having a conversation, you know, towards the end of my time at a job that I left a few months ago, I had a conversation about how it was clear to me that I could not succeed because the, the policies of the institution did not see me or think about me at all. And an example was the organization was in the process of changing providers for their for, for their retirement plans. And so in changing providers, and they were changing providers to changing retirement plans, one of the things that was going to happen when the plans changed was that, you know, technically, you have to cash in your plan. And that means you have to pay fees in order to start a new plan. And the organization was only going to pay the fees for cashing out and transferring for people who had been at the organization for more than eight years. All right, so then, okay, whatever. But if you look at the roster, well, the only people who've been at the organization for eight years are, you know, a few people who are, is a small organization. So a few people who are in leadership positions. So what you end up saying is that everyone who is, who's not has to pay a substantial amount of penalties for something that wasn't their decision in the first place. And that's an example of organizations making a choice, you know, you chose who, who you were going to subsidize and who you weren't. And, and it's, and so anyway, that's, that's an example, I hope, I think, of, of being able to get into a conversation about, you know, the way things are happening in this organization does not work for me through this, this myth of like, y'all think we're friends. So, I think that that I really appreciate, and the chat is blowing up. And so it's really great to kind of have these parallel conversations about experiences, but also those who are putting them in the chat and then kind of layering on each other's experience, like layering on and acknowledging and, and really supporting and respecting people's experiences and expecting, respecting, excuse me, what people have dealt with and how they've dealt with it and the diversity we've seen in responses. The other thing I kind of want to talk about is and this is something that I most definitely deal with. And so I'm going to shift the gears just a little bit, because when you're in these spaces, I think about being successful is about being resilient, like I said before, but part of that is also kind of charting your own course and imposter syndrome and being imposter syndrome is very, very real. And I think we experience it, I won't say everyone. Some people may not, but I think for those who experience it, it may manifest itself differently. So for our panelists or for any of the attendees in the room, how have you used or how has, how do you see imposter syndrome kind of set you back a little bit? And then how do you feel like you bounce back if you have, or if you're seeking advice on how to bounce back from, from this, from kind of being the, being the, thinking about the imposter being the imposter in the room. And I most definitely can speak to my own experience, but I want to give the floor to some others first. So for me being in a field that is usually dominated by people who are not from my ethnic background, I do have instances where I do experience imposter syndrome, but then I use one of the tools that has always helped me and that is networking. If people thought that you were not competent in what you were doing, they wouldn't reach out to you and ask you to do other things. So I always remind people of that. So, you know, whether it be LinkedIn, whether it be Facebook, or whatever, whatever your primary networking mechanism is. The second tool that I've required actually is from my own, in my own interest in just learning a new word for the day, whether it be Spanish or English. And one of the words I learned today was the word, Bonyip, B-U-N-Y-I-P. And its etymology comes from an aboriginal word that means monster. But when it came into English, it actually means an imposter. And so what I will tell people on this call and the people whom I see in my own travels is that you are not a monster. You're there for a reason. You're sitting there for a reason. And that reason is not for nothing. So take that for what it is and keep moving. Definitely, I think my comment is the same is definitely keep, definitely keep, keep moving. And I, I think, you know, something that helps me keep moving honestly is thinking about, I do, you know, honestly believe that I am my, the dreams of my ancestors. And that really does go a long way in terms of like pushing me into, into spaces that are uncomfortable and, you know, saying things like or having post-its around, you know, saying things like, you can do this, you're going to do this, this is going to happen. And I think that, and also to the point of networking, and sometimes the meeting before and after the meeting, it's important to find people who you can connect with who can remind you of that or at least who you know are pushing through uncertainty themselves and be able to have some space somewhere where you can like exhale and just, just exhale. And, and that's, that's really important and restorative because whatever confidence we have, any, any, you know, grace we have is, is a, has to be renewed. These are all finite things. If we don't find ways to replenish them, they won't replenish. And that's, I think that's an important aim to do. But yes, I've definitely, so I've definitely experienced imposter syndrome, but also, and this might be a little controversial, but I think also in getting through imposter syndrome, I have also been very intentional about thinking of ways describing myself and my skills and who I am and why I should be at a place that is kind of, how do I say this? That is, or scratch that, I'll say it like this. In my experience, I have seen organizations be very interested in my skills and who I am in my persona because they haven't met very many people like me. I'm maybe I'm the first or I'm the second or they haven't, they haven't, they haven't met very many people like me and it can be tempting to, you know, pull that into my my own drive and my own narrative. However, I also don't want my drive and my narrative to be at the expense of somewhere else or to not create space for the oodles of people like me that there are. Right. And so in that's also, I think, a part of keeping that confidence and momentum going is not having it be about, you know, whether or not someone like me has been present in this space before but being driven by the other parts of my experience and my other connections in like to my ancestors, for example, in this world. I know the chat is really popping and popping. Anybody want to speak out loud? I actually just wanted to kind of say with the imposter syndrome and I feel like I'm in the right space to talk about this but just the even with the colorist aspect of it, I run into that when it comes to addressing issues of diversity and inclusion specifically in terms of imposter syndrome as kind of what I was alluding to earlier. I mean, of course, in other positions, as far as my skillset for the job specifically, but in addressing certain issues, I feel that in many cases and even I have been, it comes up in different ways just that I will take on efforts to address certain things but I might not be the best person to do that, to communicate what I'm supposed to be defending most effectively. I think that and let's all just piggyback on a point that just came up and then I see your hand all the way raised up. So one of the things is I love going to conferences, LSA, InWave and the Black Linguists because in a department where I mean, I'm not the only one now but for a couple of years it was just me and I didn't have that space not in a day to day where I didn't have a Black faculty or I didn't have other Black students to kind of go to and talk with and so when we had some new Black students come in, I really tried to make sure that we created that space because that's what I didn't have. But the other thing is and the reason I bring up LSA and InWave is Sanja and they've been really great about creating this space where Black Linguists to come together and be in a space to learn and to just vibe like Tracy just said cultivating your tribe that really just pumps you up gasses you up. And last year, two years ago or was it two years ago right before COVID so last January we were in New Orleans and Sanja and Anne hosted a panel about being Black in Linguistics and I was just a I think I was I summed up the group or whatever but it was one of the most rewarding academic experiences that I had ever had because I saw all of these amazing Black linguists doing things that I was doing but we weren't talking about our research, we were talking about how do we get through and navigate the academy, how do we support each other, how do we you know from coming in as a grad student to being senior faculty, whatever that trajectory has to look like for the different individuals that were on that panel and it was really really helpful and I think that right now just imposter syndrome is it's crazy it's real especially I know for me but I have some amazing people in my corner that are you know they always just at the right time they send those encouraging messages or something amazing happens or you get that acknowledgement and you're like that's what I needed so finding that circle I think in this whole conversation is about being successful these are all tips about being successful find that person in your organization in your department in your back corner whatever you need to do in the back alley whatever wherever your space is that you love to to be in find that person that's going to kind of pick you up on those down days because the down days if you stay down too long you never get back up and so finding that circle finding that group and so I appreciate Sanja and in organizing that panel and now organizing ongoing the African-American language and linguistics symposium kind of conference that goes on every year now they're so black and so many different opportunities that I think you can that we can plug into the state gassed up as Tracy said to combat to most definitely combat this very real thing of imposter syndrome and however it may manifest for you Alexis and then we'll go to Mackenzie I just wanted to bring a point to say that when we're talking about imposter syndrome particularly it's incredibly imperative that we remind ourselves that we are in spaces that were not designed for us so just being there like no one woke up and created these universities or created these public sector private sector positions in a way for us to succeed so just by yes the the groups the individuals the meeting together because many to your point you said the conversation wasn't about your work it was trying to to succeed in in in white spaces in spaces that were not for us and continue to have policies and procedures that are not for us so by your presence by your work by your authority by all of these things um it's it should be easier when you approach it to say uh systematically and systemically I am not supposed to be here and if you try to keep that frame in mind that has been really helpful for me to say well against all odds against whatever you have put forward or designed or tried or uh you you have failed so I think that's really helpful on like a broader scale to keep in mind that um it's it's not for it's not for you and here you still stand thank you Alexis uh and Mackenzie um something else that I factors into this is even looking at the imposter syndrome that is looking at the the metrics we kind of hold ourselves up to and this is related to Alexis what you're saying about this space was not was not built for you and the the the rules of this space like don't even don't even see you um and also thinking about you know what are even the expectations I have about myself and I the way that I kind of realized that my one of the ways that I realized that I was looking at the wrong things is I um you know I'm I'm a linguist so I did a little experiment in my workplace at the time and I started um like praising myself in meetings for getting things done on time and you might say like why would you do that like you're supposed to get things done on time but if you look at this as like as like what are rules oppression out the window right so if you look at it that way then yeah finishing a project on time really is the most amazing thing in the world and it felt really strange at first to be like talking about this because people are not used to hearing you talk about yourself in this way there's a lot of they're not used to people who are not used to hearing that kind of discourse from me but I think just in that experiment I realized that in terms of if I just left it to what I normally would think was worth celebrating I would not talk about myself at all and like clearly that's not going to help so let's try something else of being excited when you yeah when you when when you show up when you finish things um and uh yeah so finding um because you know none of us are you could say none of us are supposed to be here so if you look at it like that everything you do is uh is gold from a unicorn's mouth and talk about it in that way okay the goal from the unicorn's mouth I'm going to need to use that I will quote you Dr. Price on that as we um as we start to coin that and use that um I really I mean there we can always ask more questions and more questions but I want to kind of do a uh summative question and then we can really open the floor for just some final dialogue for the next few minutes um look and and we've kind of done this already so this may be this may sound silly a little bit but if there's that one piece of advice right so the panel this panel was real or this conversation was really the the notion of being black and successful beyond beyond the academy but we have a lot of people who are in the academy and that may be the trajectory that some people on this uh on the car decide to go and and and some of us may decide never go back to the academy once you leave whatever whatever your preference we love you and we still going to support you through it all but uh for Mackenzie and Naeem can you give one piece of advice um on on how we can take this conversation and apply it tomorrow apply it in an hour apply it in five minutes right apply it in six months one piece of advice or one or one takeaway that you want to leave us with um before we kind of open the floor for open open dialogue and open conversation I think that my piece of advice is something that I came into this conversation with and have seen evidence of in this conversation is that networks really do work um and and this is another place where sometimes to fully embrace the power of a network you have to change what your expectations like lower your self standards and change what you think is appropriate or it needs to happen because the bar is lower than you could ever imagine and what I mean by that is like you know there might be a voice in your mind that says is it polite to send someone a LinkedIn request and act like who cares just do it like that bam connection networks work um and and also even the the length and the strength and the duration of the ties um don't function the way you think they do so case and point Tracy Connor when was the last time we saw each other I honestly don't remember but we are in each other's network and when we got on the zoom today it was as if like the time what is it right it doesn't matter and so um networks and reaching out talking to people even just saying I want to talk to you about this thing I saw on medium or on LinkedIn or I have a question about whatever the worst the worst thing that can happen is that they like take some time to respond to your message maybe but but having a network and by that I really mean saying hello to people and talking to them about the things that are on your mind is so important and facilitates both opportunities but also advice and support and feeling connected and seen and it is uh it took me a while to really learn this lesson and believe it but it is so it is so important so I guess the piece of advice I give to everyone on this call is to be so great that you cannot be ignored and I came to this piece of advice because of my own struggles during my my tenure as a doctoral student I had issues getting my my generals papers approved and at the since at Ohio State we had two pre-generals papers before you can take a general exam and I couldn't understand why I had these issues so I looked up in the department manual and I said well what is the acceptance criteria to get these papers approved and there was one criteria that right excuse me one criterion that they had where if your papers accepted by a journal or conference of your peers then it is automatically accepted so I took up that challenge and I said look every one of these papers is going to be in a conference or or journal and so my first one was accepted to the inter-speech conference and as a result of that my advisor couldn't do it didn't have the luxury of delaying the acceptance of the papers anymore so he eventually he signed off on the first one the second paper after a certain number of revisions was accepted into a journal and so he had faculty meetings people would question him what's what's the deal here he passed the requirement why don't you pass him and then eventually he caved and he did it and so that's really the call to action I give to all of you who are on the call I'll give you another example so Janice had mentioned early about a case where some if you suffered any type of bias or racism and you left the job well I had a job where they left me and they told me outright one day we don't need a scientist anymore we need more developers and this is after I had come I had helped them with four different patents for the same company four of them all of them were my I was basically the primary inventor on all of them and so they left me and I I had no I didn't put up much fuss about it six months later I get an email from one of their patent attorneys asking me oh can you help us with one of these patents we're having some issue guess what my answer was so in in this case there could they did not have a way of getting rid of me entirely they had to deal with me and so my call to all of you regardless of whether or not you win or you lose in your career be so great that they cannot ignore you or your accomplishments because those accomplishments will last you for longer than you may think both of both of those so Mackenzie telling us about the importance of your network one of my one of my friends who he always says your net worth your network is your net worth right and really who it's not about what you have but it's about who you know and how they can help you get to where you want to be and then Naeem is letting us know to be so great that you cannot be ignored and I think my piece of advice will be your journey is your journey it's uniquely yours my journey has been super crazy hills valleys we went to grandma's house five times we came back and then you know we crossed the ocean and then we sank a little bit and then we rose up and and all of those things right but it has been uniquely mine there are maybe one or two things I would change just because they are things that were in my control but a lot of it I couldn't control and I think because of that I'm able to reach more people and I'm able to talk to more people and help people understand going through a program with medical challenges having a child who is you know has a lot of medical needs or whatever your situation may be there are other people who are dealing with those things and because I was able to kind of talk about my experience openly that helps somebody else so be comfortable in your own journey my journey is not like Tracy's not like Mackenzie's not like Naeem's not like Sanjia's not like Marcus etc etc and I have to and it took me a long time to be okay with that and the last piece of advice is actually I was meeting with my daughter's neurologist and he said stop mourning over what you've never had and what he was saying is you know my daughter has different abilities and her she has her cognitive ability is is lower than others and he said stop trying to want the perfect daughter stop wanting her to be like every other child love her and celebrate who she is and when you think about this and he said stop mourning what you never had because she's teaching you lessons that you will never that you've never could have learned any other way and um and I'm sitting in the hospital like we're in the hospital and I'm sitting looking at this man and at first I was like why is this man coming to do this little test with her you know we already know what's going on and I left that room like nearly in tears because he made me pivot my thinking right like she's never going to be you know what every other kid is going to be and I and I love her for that because she's taught me never to want to be what anybody else is going to be so enjoy your journey and embrace your own individual journey and um stop mourning what you never had I think that those are super super um critical lessons and I think in doing those things you can be successful and you will be successful because success for all of us looks different there there are 13 people on this call at this or I'm sorry there's 26 people on this call right now and there are 37 definitions of success right because each of us in our own minds we're not we have our own definition of success and then we have two more and so I think it's really really important just to be successful whatever that means to you embrace your own journey get your network um and just be great be great and so with that I will we have most definitely others have comments uh questions concerns funny stories amazing stories inspiring moments please share them we are here um you know and we are here to support each other lift each other up and to enjoy this space and and to get through this Wednesday thank you Mackenzie and Naeem for joining me um I really appreciate you have been amazing conversation and like you said we should all be everybody please feel free to join you on LinkedIn or whatever you need to do and we'll stay here and thank you so much everybody for coming and spending your hour and a half with us this Wednesday afternoon or morning or evening depending on where you are in the world