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Newsletter - Fall 2002 Past Student Profile
For me, the MARC Program provided the financial bridge that I was looking for. When I entered the Program at Barry in 1993, I didn't know much about what it meant to do a graduate degree but I knew that I wanted to teach. I had heard about this program that would pay my tuition, pay me a stipend and enable me to do research as an undergraduate. That, I figured, should be worth something no matter what teaching job I was applying for. The fact that it was a program meant to encourage underrepresented minorities to enter different fields of scientific research was only secondary to me at the time. After all, the image of color and ethnicity in Jamaica was quite different too. Once I started the MARC Program, however, I found that in addition to all that I thought I would get out of it, I was also provided with opportunities that I didn't even know that I needed. I could practice the art of public presentation as I learned about the scientific process from the inside. I was able to travel to scientific meetings where I could begin to establish networks with students, scientists and university representatives from across the United States. I was able to pinpoint my own goals and learn firsthand about the steps that I needed to take to achieve them. I graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1995 and held acceptance letters from ten different Ph.D. programs in my hand. I decided to do my graduate degree in Organic Chemistry at Columbia University in New York and was awarded a National Science Foundation Minority Graduate Research Fellowship after completing my first semester. In this high-level academic arena, very few people had even heard of Barry University. Because of the preparation that I received through the MARC Program, I have had the opportunity to change that. It's now been almost two years since I finished my Ph.D. I was told afterwards that I was the first person from a historically underrepresented group to graduate from Columbia's Chemistry Department. I found myself appreciating on a whole new level that this is what the MARC Program is all about - providing the means for students belonging to underrepresented groups to gain access to research careers in places where they haven't gone before. The need for such a focus on ethnic diversity may not have seemed as important in my own background, but I was quickly becoming aware of how essential this could be in my new environment. Now I have just completed my first year as an Assistant Professor at Hunter College in New York. I feel it was a stroke of luck that I was offered this position, since Hunter happens to be a college with its own NIH-sponsored minority research fellowships. I am gradually taking on a more active role in the MARC and MBRS Programs here. So far I've mainly been involved in student recruitment and the screening of applications, but I expect that my duties will keep expanding with time. At the same time I am becoming more aware of something that is by no means limited to the MARC and MBRS students that I come in contact with. I have begun to see the impact that my presence can have on the diverse population that is in my classroom. Some students have told me how unusual it was for them to see someone like me in my position - how few role models they have had on their path to a higher degree. In a way I feel that my greatest responsibility is to provide them with tangible evidence that someone can succeed who is just like them. I feel that I am now in the right place to continue to make a difference and this, once again, is what the MARC and MBRS Programs are all about. Karen Phillips, Ph.D.
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Barry
University - College of Arts and Sciences Copyright © Barry University, Miami Shores, FL - Reporting Copyright Infringements |
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Last Updated: September 5, 2002 |
It
seems like a long time now since I had to drop out of college after finishing
my Associate in Arts Degree. My academic record in the United States was
stellar, but my mother had just had a tumor removed from her brain and
I needed to find a way to help look after her. My career had to be put
on hold because I simply didn't have the financial resources to continue.
I had no doubt that I would eventually complete my degree. It was just
a matter of time and money and I would just have to be patient. Coming
from Jamaica, I was accustomed to seeing women achieve academic success.
I never felt that I had a shortage of role models although no one in my
immediate family had gone on to get an advanced degree. I believed that
I could do whatever I set my mind to.
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