 media access. I'm your host Emily Murnin and today joining me are members of the UC Davis Student Organization esteem which is the equity for the STEM fields and entrepreneurship. So thank you so much for being here today. I'm so glad that we're able to talk about this. So why don't we yeah so why don't we start with introducing you guys. So do you want to start? So I'm Doug Gettle. I'm a fifth-year graduate student at the chemical engineering program at UC Davis. Awesome and what do you do in the esteem? Do you have a certain position or you just remember? I'm a co-lead. Awesome. As well as Sam and Elise are as well. Okay. I'm Elise Towns. I'm a fifth-year graduate student in the chemistry department and I'm also a co-lead of esteem. Yeah so I'm Samantha Fan. I'm a fourth-year grad student from College of Toxicology at UC Davis and I'm also the co-lead for esteem this year. That's awesome. So what do you guys do in esteem? So it's a professional development group that we operate under the biotechnology program at UC Davis and we do outreach and then we also plan other events all aimed at increasing involvement in stem and entrepreneurship fields for women and underrepresented minorities. Awesome. That's so great. So how do you do that? How do you promote equity in these fields? That's a good question. For the most part what we try to do is talk about different things that can hinder diversity in the field and problems that people have had and how they've overcome them to give inspiration to other people that might be having the same problem. Alright so why do you think there is a lack of diversity in stem fields and entrepreneurship so often? Is that what you guys talk about really? Yeah it's an opportunity. I think a lot of it's the most part. I think that opportunity is a big one as well as I think it's kind of it's confidence. We talk a lot about if you see someone in a position that you'd like to be in that someone that looks like you be a woman or an underrepresented minority then you feel more like you could do that too and so we talk about how if you meet more people that have done these things then that can encourage others. Definitely so it's kind of like there's an underrepresentation that kind of causes people to do it a little less and so it kind of so your job is to try to stop that from happening. Yeah exactly. I like to bring the audience that there's still awareness about there's an equity that happening in the 21st century and how we're gonna like try to do it from a student organization side and try to bring the equity to everyone. Definitely. So what kind of events or activities have you guys done? Well so we have events in a couple different ways we've I guess our mission statement really overall is designed both to promote interest in scientific careers for younger folks as well as to also teach leadership and development both communication and collaborative skills for graduate students as well undergrad and graduate students. So we do both outreach centered events and then we've also had colloquium events each year designed we brought speakers from both industry academia and government and they've shared their experiences some of them difficulties they've had obstacles they've overcome to get where they are and to be successful as they have and so the outreach we've we've gone to local middle school and we've done some science experiments as well as a STEM career workshop focusing on different topics in science in STEM and trying to you know kind of drive interest and teach these students that you know interesting great possibilities out there for them that they can be they can they can achieve those goals and those dreams. That's so wonderful so how long has this bit organization been around is it fairly new? So I guess this is the third year and so under the current title of the STEAM but it was started three years ago under actually a different title Will, WIL, Women in Leadership by two graduate students UC Davis Jenny Lee and Nicole Schaffi and it was then renamed a STEAM last year and continued this year. Oh that's wonderful so is it just a UC Davis organization currently? Currently. Okay so do you guys have any goals for like spreading it across UCs or anything like that? I think that would be a great goal ultimately for now we're just trying to keep it running and so keep the ball rolling for the next few years and then after we're hoping that it just keeps growing at UC Davis and then we could expand it to the other UCs or anywhere. Yeah that's wonderful so how many members do you guys have currently? I think we have around 45. Awesome so are there any upcoming events that you guys are currently working on? Yeah so actually we have our last event of the year which is happening next Monday. We invited Dr. DeAngeles which is the professor from John Hopkins School of Medicine and then she's going to give us a talk at GBSF from 530 to 630 about like the general equities or just the equities in general about a STEM field. Yeah. Great so how do you get in contact with all these people is there who's in charge of that? Probably all of us. Yeah yeah our our advisor Dr. Judy Chelstrom she has a lot of contacts with different biotechnology companies so we were able to get some of our contacts through her and then otherwise it's kind of looking for people that we like a lot of like LinkedIn looking for people that we think would be a good fit and emailing them and seeing what happens. Great so how do you spread the word about your organization and get people to come to these events? We send out emails to a lot of different list serves and we also had had flyers for the colloquium so it's most we have mostly graduate students in our group but I mean it's and other people can join it's a mostly a campus event but our campus group but we're open to other people I mean our our idea is equity and so we want anyone who's interested to join. Yeah and we're on TV today so. Oh definitely that'll help. We also have a website too with our contact information and a little bit about what we what our goals are. Oh perfect so yeah there are a lot of great ways to promote that and I think definitely college is a great environment to do that and so why how have you reached out to middle schools and stuff have you talked to high schoolers at all? We haven't we've actually so we did outreach events at fifth grade, fifth grade class in winters this year and that was a lot of fun and there's a lot the biotech program actually does outreach separate from esteem so I think they do it in other grade levels not just fifth grade so for now we focus with them and have had really great results but maybe yeah definitely I think targeting kids who are a little older would also be a great idea because that there's more pressure to find out what you want to do and I think a lot of the times girls and underrepresented minorities can be a little discouraged if they don't see faces and you know be reminded yeah that's definitely cool. We also there was a study I think that was said around fifth grade maybe it's not in here but around fifth grade was a time at which this at which like underrepresented minorities or girls is that right? Yeah they title it the Valley of Death sometimes. Yeah it's like the Valley of Death it's when they would start deciding whether or not they wanted to keep but keep like really like science and math or not so if they made it out of that out of fifth grade or sixth grade with that feeling that's a good sign. That's super interesting so is that why you guys are targeting kind of that area a little more? Yeah that was why we started but I mean I think there's also I mean there's a good opportunity everywhere. Definitely so when did you get why and when did you each of you get involved? I got involved in my in the first year when I was coming in leadership. Yeah I think I saw the email one time like through the listserv and then they were talking about this panelist and they invited a lot of like different speakers from either the government of governors or the academia or the industry and all those are like the leaders in like women leaders in different fields and then they're going to talk about how they actually achieve the leadership and then what kind of problems they have been facing and then how are they gonna just tackle it so I think it was very interesting and I want to get involved more for sure so I started volunteering through that year and I just become the codees and it is here as well. Same is true for me as well. Awesome so as women Samantha and Elise did have you experienced any kind of problems in when you started your science field did you feel like a minority or like? Sometimes in some of my classes I did for the most part I felt like there was just this inherent oh no you can't do this which I think that it's not necessarily exclusive to women or underrepresented minorities but I felt like I might need a little bit more push to keep going. Yeah I know I guess like when you started like people don't know what exactly that you can do they will always have doubts in you but like actually when you showed ability that you can actually tackle the tasks just the same as everyone else and then they're like yeah yeah that's great. Yeah so not too bad. Yeah do you guys have an ultimate goal in this club organization? If we can encourage any number of people be that one or hopefully more to keep going towards the science or the STEM on entrepreneurship field where they might not have gone for it then I think that we did a good job. Definitely because you know women and minorities make up such a huge part of this planet and it's kind of upsetting to think of all the lost opportunities if someone feels like they're discouraged. And companies thrive with more diversity. Yeah awesome so is there anything you guys want to let everyone know about your club? If you like STEM and entrepreneurship or outreach events and hopefully both then look us up and join us we'd love to have more people to come out and go to these events and support equity and STEM entrepreneurship. Yeah we have our website so if you want to email us and ask more information about organization and then yeah feel free to do that. So their website is biotech.ucdavis.edu slash esteme correct? Yeah perfect. So you guys have done a lot of things in the past and you're gonna be around next year right? Yeah I'll be around next year everyone else will be graduating. Oh you guys are graduating? Yeah but we will be moving up new co-leads of STEM as well as Sam so then we're hoping then it will just keep going every year and it's kind of we want it to be a training program where the people one year are helping run everything and honing leadership skills that then they can use the next year maybe as co-leads or in higher other positions. That's so great so as co-leads what do you guys do differently from other members? We got some more emails I guess. No yeah we probably have I wouldn't say like more responsibility like we just shared a responsibility but like we would host the meetings and then like just to tell other affiliates that what exactly the tasks that they are gonna do for the seminars or for the different events that we are going to host. Okay more organizing and planning and then delegating to other members. Great so do you guys think there are any other ways that you can try to promote your events at all other than just emailing? Probably. I mean I think that as a teenager I think it'd be really helpful to see a social media presence in some way because that's where I get like all my information now and I think if I see these events I think the word will spread really well. Okay yeah so we I don't think we have our own Twitter page. I recommend it. That's a great idea. We tried we had a hashtag. Oh what was it? I think so I think was there it was at the pun intended the esteem because I feel like self-esteem was that intended at all? Did any of you kind of recognize that? Because I feel like esteem self-esteem is such a huge part of being able to project confidence. Yeah yeah so I love that. Yeah the name was come up with by the co-leads before us so I think it was intended. There's so much fun potential. I think it's lovely and equity is so important in these fields and I really think that it's organizations like you guys are the reason that things are gonna change and they're already kind of changing pretty rapidly so thank you so much yeah definitely thank you so much for being here and being able to talk about it I'm so glad I know about this now and I will definitely share it with my friends. Great thank you. So the website again is biotech.ucdavis.edu slash e-s-t-e-m-e if you're looking for more information and look out for a Facebook page because I gave them a really good idea so thank you so much for joining me today if you want to watch any more videos you can go to dctv.davismedia.org or you can check us out on YouTube at Davis Media Access. I'll see you next time.