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Mentoring relationships are social relationships, so identity - the way you think about yourself, how you are viewed by the world, and the characteristics you use to define yourself - matters.
People have multiple identities, such as their gender identification, sexual orientation, place of birth, race, ethnicity, profession, values, and even hobbies.
Students’ identities can heavily influence their academic journeys in STEMM. Therefore, mentors must consider and acknowledge identity when supporting their students. In this episode, we hear stories from students and postdocs who all come from various backgrounds and who hold different identities. They share how their identity influenced their STEMM journey, how their mentoring relationship approached identity, and the impact made when their mentors fully considered their identity.
Mentorship is essential to the development of anyone in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, or medicine, but did you know mentorship is a set of skills that can be learned, practiced, and optimized?
In this 10-part series from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, you’ll hear the personal mentorship stories of leaders in academia, business, and the media, in their own words. Learn how evidence-based mentorship practices can help you develop the skills to engage in the most effective STEMM mentoring relationships possible.
If you are a mentor, a mentee, or have a role in mentorship, this podcast is for you.
Bethany Brookshire (00:11):
Identity. It's the composite of who a person is. It's how somebody thinks about themselves, how they're viewed by the world, and what characteristics they use to define themselves. A person can hold multiple identities. For example, I identify as being white. I also identify as being a cisgender Jewish woman, a journalist, a scientist, an athlete, and a musician. These identities don't just stand alone. They interact with and influence each other.
The students and postdocs I spoke with all can came from various backgrounds and all held different constellations of identities. Those identities can really influence a student's academic journey, and the science of mentorship backs that up. Because of this, mentors have to consider and acknowledge these identities when supporting their students. This is The Science of Mentorship, a podcast from the national enemies of sciences, engineering, and medicine that explores the mentoring skills that can and should be learned to unleash everyone's potential in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine.
I'm your host, Bethany Brookshire. Like I mentioned before, students and postdocs have multiple identities. These identities can include gender identification, sexual orientation, place of birth, race, ethnicity, first generation college status, profession values, and even hobbies. All of these identities make up who a mentee is and they influence their walk through life. Nicole Benally saw how her identity influenced her graduate school experience. We heard from Nicole in our previous episodes. She's a PhD student in forestry and she's also Native American. So when she started graduate school, she had a very different experience compared to her white colleagues.
Nicole Benally (01:58):
So I came from not living a normal or typical American life style. So that was hard for me. And that was a transition that I had to go through. And then going to classes or seeing other students, and other faculty, and teaching them we still exist. Native Americans or indigenous people still exist. And some people had no idea. To be completely honest. So a lot of my graduate lifestyle, I guess, or I don't know, part of my career as a master student was educating people like, "Native Americans exist. And this is my experience living on my reservation. This is what Native Americans are today," kind of thing.
It was challenging to be the at voice. But if I didn't say anything, I felt like I wasn't meant to be there. My way to also pave the road for other Native Americans that are going to be going to school is to educate or whoever they come across with in their future lives, wherever they go in their careers is to have this knowledge of Native Americans exist. And this is maybe the start of them learning more about Native American or indigenous culture and people.
Bethany Brookshire (03:15):
Nicole believes she could play an important role in helping other Native Americans navigate the graduate school experience. But this role came at a cost.
Nicole Benally (03:23):
It gets exhausting. I think also being noticed too, after you feel like you're invisible and you don't exist or don't belong there. And you finally get over that, you're seen as the only or the few Native American people or students in campus. So you're always asked to do recruitments or asked to do these opportunities so they can recruit more Native students. And I also had to learn my boundaries with that and being cautious. I remember the first thing that I was asked to do was to be on a pamphlet, like a recruiting pamphlet for Purdue University at the department. And I was okay with that because they were going to show me the pamphlet before they released it. And they had me say what I wanted to say. And a lot of that was having support from the Native American Cultural Center for recruiting me and getting me involved and also my team, my lab group at the time.
So that was what I said. And that was the truth for me. But after that, it was other things like, "Hey, you want to be on this one too? And this one too?" I was like, "No, I don't want to. I don't have time for it. Sorry." So being the new shiny penny or being recruited to do all these things so it's another check mark off the list of including people of color or Native American voices. And you have to be cautious when you get to that point as well. Yeah. Cautious but respectful because you don't want to say "No." And then they perceive it as being disrespectful. And then they have that image of like, "Oh, this Native American student was so disrespectful or didn't want to do this." And then they don't... I don't know, I guess you just have this responsibility beyond yourself once you get recognized.
And it's very hard and I don't think Native graduate students, or graduate students should have, or normally have that responsibility. But when you are a person of color or Native American, it does get a little bit harder or you have more responsibility more than being just a graduate student.
Bethany Brookshire (05:29):
At first, Nicole felt invisible. And then suddenly, she felt very recognized because of her identity. Nicole experienced what people refer to as a cultural tax, where people of color or other underrepresented identities are expected to take on additional responsibilities because of their identity. I've seen this with faculty as well, where faculty from underrepresented backgrounds tend to have underrepresented students gravitate to them to be mentored and supported by them. Those faculty also are often expected to serve on any committee that feels it needs an underrepresented member.
It can add to the faculty member's workload, and often, it can cause these faculty members to take on fewer research opportunities and even affect their promotions or tenure status. The same can happen with students like Nicole. While she wanted to pave the way for other Native Americans in graduate school, it added more responsibilities to her already heavy workload, responsibilities that her white peers didn't have. This is one reason why mentors need to be aware of their mentees' identities. They have to consider how identity may be influencing their students STEMM experiences, because there are so many other students who are like Nicole, who begin their academic journey with a different burden.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
I think, especially for people of color, there's this invisible cost showing up and existing in spaces that don't reflect you or look like you. That doesn't necessarily make them hostile in and of themselves. But that is just the reality.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
At least for women of color, it's just a little harder to navigate the STEMM fields. So it's just nice having, or seeing other people of color being successful and wanting the next generation to also be successful. I feel like it definitely helps. And we're all given all these different cards in life. So it's nice knowing when someone like you recognizes that they have a similar hand and can help you navigate maybe difficult situations that you might face.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
If we are serious about creating a more diverse and inclusive workplace as well, is that for me, as a white woman, it's very easy for me to integrate into these settings. Because although this is my first office job, I've been living within this world where it's easy for me to integrate with the way that people talk and the way that people work. And so for anyone coming into this setting who wasn't raised in a similar way to me, they might not understand this shared set of expectations that isn't explicitly said out loud. And so I think anything that you can do to just get those on paper, have them in writing so people understand like, "Oh, okay, the instance how this workplace functions," is a win for everyone.
Bethany Brookshire (08:24):
In season one, we heard from Dr. Kate Clancy. Dr. Clancy is an associate professor in anthropology at the University of Illinois in her time as both a mentee and a mentor, she learned why it was so critical to include a student's identity in the mentoring process.
Dr. Clancy (08:39):
How is it that the sort of racial, and gender, and sexual identities of our students plays a role in how we mentor them? And that sometimes, there are actually failures in how we mentor them, because we don't take those sorts of things into account? I know that there is a recognition, certainly on the part of our students, that there are a lot of times that they feel they are mentored in a way that isn't as useful for them. So for instance, when say, a white cisgender woman, such as myself, has a particular lived experience and a part confirmation bias that is related to the success that I've had, then if I try to impart that wisdom on a student with a different lived experience, I could really lead them astray in terms of what they need from me in that moment.
Bethany Brookshire (09:36):
Recognizing mentees' identities can make the mentoring relationship more useful for everyone involved, but how do you do this while helping your mentee to feel comfortable and safe? I learned that it starts by first accepting your mentees' identities. I thought of Brianna Benedict, the PhD candidate in industrial engineering from our first episode. Brianna started her graduate program and immediately saw that there were not a lot of people who shared her identity and it would make life really different for her.
Brianna Benedict (10:04):
So I attend Purdue University, and Indiana does not have a lot of black people, especially not west Lafayette. And so there were no hair salons. And so I ended up cutting off all of my hair. I have locs now, but back in March of 2017, I did the big top. And when I went to campus, I was fully embraced. Nobody made any negative comments about my hair. And even as I've transitioned into locing my hair, I've been embraced. Being a black woman, I felt like I could be myself with them, even through my interesting experiences with other people.
Bethany Brookshire (10:45):
Like many white dominated workplaces, STEMM workplaces, may stereotype natural black hairstyles, including dreadlocks and consider them unprofessional. So Brianna was potentially taking a risk by first, cutting her hairs short and then transitioning to dreadlocks. But not only did her peers accept her, Brianna's mentor also made a space where she could be open and honest about her experience.
Brianna Benedict (11:06):
I've always felt like I could go to my advisors and tell them about them and we can talk through it. They never put me in a position where I couldn't talk about my identity as a black woman.
Bethany Brookshire (11:17):
Brianna's mentors understood that Brianna had different lived experiences from the rest of her peers. And by acknowledging this context, they helped Brianna feel welcome, like she was in the right place.
In our last episode, we heard from Trevon Giles, a PhD student in neuroscience. He shared with me about how knowing the context that a person comes from is really important in mentoring relationships. Trevon wanted his mentors to understand how his experience as a black man influenced his journey. He found this support from mentors who shared similar identities and from those who had very different backgrounds.
Trevon Giles (11:49):
The first black man that I had as a mentor was Dr. Bennett. Dr. Haftel is a white woman. And then my two other mentors at Morehouse were also women. Two of them were black women. And Dr. Nestel, of course, is a white man. But I think they're all socially aware of the advantages and disadvantages that they have and that I have, and they're able to access them and find ways to combine them.
Bethany Brookshire (12:15):
Even though one of Trevon's mentors was a white man who had a very different lived experience, he acknowledged Trevon's identity as a black man and recognized that this would influence Trevon's research experience. So he decided to make it really clear to Trevon how he would support him through it.
Trevon Giles (12:30):
I'm the only black man in this neuroscience cohort and in the incoming cohort. And I think Dr. Nestel was very upfront about that. And he was very upfront about being willing to support me in that position because he knew it was tough and he knows that I would need support. And now that I'm here, he's very supportive about increasing the number of black men here. And so I think it's nice to have someone who's willing to be blunt enough to say, "I know this is an issue, and I want to help you solve it."
Bethany Brookshire (13:05):
Sometimes. Institutions don't acknowledge that everyone has a role in supporting underrepresented students through their academic experience.
Trevon Giles (13:12):
Institutions leave it on the minorities or the ones disadvantaged to come up with solutions to make them equal to everyone else without factoring in the people who are at advantage.
Bethany Brookshire (13:26):
Trevon was certainly not the first student to mention this. To me. There seemed to be a theme that often, we expect the people who hold identities that are underrepresented in STEMM them to solve the problems created by the systems designed to exclude them. But I was finding through these conversations that everyone can and should play a role in creating inclusive environments that recognize and value the identities of students. Mentors should realize that they don't need to share the same background as their underrepresented mentees to support them.
I want to acknowledge too, that I spoke with a lot of students in postdocs who expressed how thankful they were to have mentors who shared similar backgrounds, identities, and lived experiences. It helped them to not feel so alone, and helped them to envision themselves in their STEMM field. This is a unique kind of support, but the point that a lot of students were making was that this responsibility to support underrepresented students shouldn't just fall on underrepresented faculty.
Dr. Sabelhaus (14:19):
The faculty member that I worked with, besides being thoughtful and caring, really cultivated an inclusive environment at a time when these conversations were just barely starting.
Bethany Brookshire (14:31):
That's Dr. Andrew Sabelhaus, the postdoc in mechanical engineering who we've heard from in our are previous episodes. Dr. Sabelhaus told me about a time where he was in the midst of his undergraduate research experience. He had recently come out and was really involved in the LGBT community on campus. But this was in a different time and place one, where he wasn't exactly accepted.
Dr. Sabelhaus (14:51):
This was 2010, and I was leading an LGBT student group on campus at the time. And this was still in the don't ask, don't tell era. And people didn't really know language or what it would end up meaning to include people with different gender identities and all these other kinds of things. And the folks who were in my student group, and oftentimes, it was intimidating. In classes, for example. It's the thing where there's five people in the group, four men and me, and they're all joking about boy things. And then I come in and the conversation stops. Or I had, for example, a summer job with the Army Corps of Engineers. There was a little bit of a military culture in there. And my bosses there, they shared their opinions about gay people with me. And it was extremely unpleasant.
Bethany Brookshire (15:40):
This environment was really uncomfortable for Dr. Sabelhaus. It wasn't welcoming or accepting at all. It made him feel like he was doing something wrong in science, just for being who he was. But something helped him through it. And it started with how his mentor at the time worked to create an inclusive lab environment.
Dr. Sabelhaus (15:56):
And in comparison, my undergraduate research experience, the lab itself was extremely diverse. There was no majority group there. There were lots of women, lots of underrepresented people of color, obviously me, and just that fact made the way that we talked to each other very different and the way that she talked to us very different.
Bethany Brookshire (16:14):
It didn't matter that Dr. Sabelhaus' mentor had a different lived experience. She accepted all his identity and worked to understand him and what he was going through. And even though she could never fully understand, she worked hard to support him.
Dr. Sabelhaus (16:27):
And then she also reached out for me a couple of times. I have a very strong memory of she knew and supported the volunteering work, the student work that I was doing on the side. And at one point, there was a faculty member actually, who she knew from her undergraduate career, who was a member of the LGBT community. And she actually pulled me aside one time and said, "Hey, this person is coming in and giving them a talk. Consider going and having them come and speak to your student group."
And I was really going out on a limb for her for my mentor, because she was just a little bit awkward. She didn't really know the terminology again and I could tell that she was really pushing herself to do this. But the fact that she tried and the fact that she cared so much was huge for me. And that's a lesson and that I take really going forward was how important it is to have an environment where people want to come and be there where it's not just pleasant, but it's desirable to come in and work in that lab. That was huge.
Bethany Brookshire (17:29):
Sometimes, mentors might be uncomfortable with acknowledging their mentees' identities for fear of being offensive or misunderstood. The problem with this is that it creates what we call a color blind view. Some people might think that color blindness is equalizing, but when a mentor refuses to acknowledge the various identities of a student, they may fail to realize that these identities do in fact shape their students' experiences. Dr. Sabelhaus' mentor noticed that his social identities played a significant role in his academic journey. And even though she may have been uncomfortable acknowledging this at first, she chose to move forward. And in doing so, created a space where he felt safe.
Dr. Sabelhaus (18:08):
I'd only been out for like a year and a half at that point, still getting used to being in a professional relationship with someone and when my identity comes out as a product of natural conversation. And I think with my undergraduate research mentor, it was a little bit of her sharing her life with me and showing that she was comfortable with these maybe less formal aspects of, say, an engineering relationship, engineering mentoring relationship.
She, for example, would do things like when we were working hard on paper deadlines. Her husband would buy Chipotle burritos for all of us. And we would set up a folding table in the lab and we would all sit there and eat. And we would all just be talking about our lives and things like that. And I think those little small interactions made it such that I really didn't feel... I don't even really remember coming out because it was just so fluid. And that was the experience that I took forward. Being like, "Hey, this is how good it could be. This is how good it could be. This is what I want to do in the future." And replicate that.
Bethany Brookshire (19:16):
I was really moved by Dr. Sabelhaus' experience. And then I took a second and I imagined if Dr. Sabelhaus didn't have a mentor who accepted and included him in a welcoming lab environment. I imagined what could have happened if his only experience was in a research lab where it was made crystal clear that his identity was not accepted. This is the reality for a lot of underrepresented students in STEMM. And the result is that these students often suppress aspects of their identities to try to fit in. They're left feeling unsupported and may end up wondering if they should stay in this profession or not.
By accepting and including students' identities in the mentoring relationship, mentors can help cultivate another important identity in their students, science identity, where the students recognize themselves as successful contributors to and members of the scientific enterprise. When students can combine this new identity with their others, they don't have to feel like they need to hide parts of their identity while they do science. They can be their full selves while contributing to the field.
People who are not in underrepresented groups may sometimes forget how important being yourself is to being successful. It takes a higher cognitive load to have to juggle different facets of your identity for different contexts. Having to do that constantly can affect your productivity and wellbeing. And I wondered how students can envision themselves as successful in STEMM if they don't see people who share their identities succeeding, or if they're discouraged from following their chosen career path.
Dr. Green (20:48):
So I think I come from a very unique bubble.
Bethany Brookshire (20:53):
That's Dr. Michael Green, the postdoctoral fellow who we heard from in our previous episodes. In the beginning of his academic career, Dr. Green was in an environment where he felt he could embrace all of his identities and be accepted for who he was.
Dr. Green (21:06):
So at Morehouse College, being a historically black college university, I was surrounded by people who looked like me 24/7. And even at my research at Morehouse School of Medicine, which is across the street, it was still mostly minority students. So I didn't exit that fantasy land until I went to grad school, to where you're back in the real world where I'm now the minority again. But then, like I mentioned, meeting Dr. Verabeno, her lab uniquely almost reflected the [inaudible 00:21:40] a minority education institute environment, to where we were very diverse.
I think diverse PIs who come from diverse backgrounds, students typically tend to gravitate towards them. I think we were majority women. We had black women, we had a grad student from Bangladesh. We had a diverse group of cultures and backgrounds in my graduate lab. My own identity was present at all times. I never had to hide myself. I was allowed to be the ex-football player who is clumsy at times, but also a nerd and still hang out with the people who probably would never knew anything about me. They were just see I'm just a black guy, because we'd have conversations on all the time.
Like I said, we talked a lot. We got work done, but we also talked a lot. And we almost had a little family to where if someone's getting married, you get a wedding invitation. Or come time for a thesis defense, everyone was there supporting, because that was one of your own getting to that next level.
Bethany Brookshire (22:50):
Then Dr. Green went on to his first postdoc lab and the environment was very different.
Dr. Green (22:56):
In terms of my time not having my identity or me having to not be myself, I would probably go back to my first postdoc lab, to where amongst the people in the lab, we were pretty much ourselves. But when it came time for lab meetings, it was just a very different environment in that I liked to crack jokes all the time. I said one joke and it just wasn't well received. And I said the joke many, many times, and people laughed, but she didn't laugh. And I felt I could be silly. I couldn't necessarily be myself. And I noticed from other people that they felt restricted in what they could do and what they could talk about. At the same time, I think in that environment, it was just strictly business. I knew that I didn't belong there anymore. And I needed to go somewhere where I can be my silly self and still do research.
Bethany Brookshire (23:51):
Dr. Green felt like he had to subdue parts of his identity and that didn't sit well with him. For Dr. Green, he had to hide his goofy side, a part of him that brought him joy. For other students, they may feel like they have to subdue parts of their culture, or Native language, or even hide their personal relationships to be successful in the lab or in the eyes of their mentor. In our previous episode, I talked with Isaiah Sypher, a graduate student in clinical psychology. This idea of being able to be your true self and not hide any of your identities, it was something that Isaiah also noted as key to being successful in STEMM.
Isaiah Sypher (24:26):
I think one of the things that I'm most grateful for, and this just goes back to my upbringing, is I was taught just to know who I am, to be able to stand and live in my own truth, and understand that it's not these institutions that create me, but that it's really this sort of reciprocal relationship. Yes, they're contributing to me, but I'm also contributing to them. And what I have to bring to the table is of value. And I think that that's just always been a part of who I am.
Bethany Brookshire (25:10):
Throughout his academic experience, it was really important for Isaiah to always be fully himself, never feeling like he had to hide anything.
Isaiah Sypher (25:17):
I think a lot of us are people pleasers. And a lot of us, we have really deeply in turn other people's expectations of us to the point where we're so eager to meet those that we're fighting against ourselves, really. And not living in our own truth and not following our own path.
Bethany Brookshire (25:45):
Isaiah knew who he was and knew that it only hurt himself and his career to subdue his identities. So when it came to finding mentors, he looked for people who not only accepted him, but who also wanted to combine their different lived experiences and collaborate to push the field forward.
Isaiah Sypher (26:01):
That was one of the reasons why I chose the lab and chose that mentorship relationship, is because he made it clear early on that he himself was interested in issues around diversity, issues around social justice. And so I felt that he was someone I could really speak to about those things and who would listen. And really, I think we've been able to learn a lot from each other in that way, because I think we both bring different perspectives from where we're coming from. And I would say that definitely has been a whole person relationship.
Bethany Brookshire (26:48):
A student should never enter a mentoring relationship and feel like they need to take off their identities like they're taking off a coat. Identities like race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and others should combine with their science identity so that students, no matter their background or experience, can envision themselves, their whole selves, as key players in STEMM. Mentors have the responsibility to recognize their student's identities and work, to understand how these identities will affect their mentees academic experience. And by doing this, they can create more safe space and inclusive environments where students have more potential to thrive in STEMM.
Sometimes, mentorship programs can help support students and postdocs of all identities, creating those inclusive STEMM environments in the process. We'll hear more about some of these programs in our next episode. If you want to learn more about the science of effective mentoring STEMM, you can at N-A-S.E-D-U/mentoring. If you're enjoying The Science of Mentorship, please tell your friends, colleagues, students, teachers, and of course, your mentors and mentees about our podcast, and help others discover it by giving us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Thanks for listening.
SOM-Identity-Final Transcript
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