#BlackGirlOnCampus

Memorable College Experience or Reflection on College Artifact

Well, I have a [maga]zine that was made by a student at my college. I went to Mount Holyoke College for undergrad. I started college in high school. I did a few credits at a community college near me, but I didn't go all the way through there. But Mount Holyoke, I started in 2018 and there's a zine here. It says, "Black joy at Mount Holyoke." It was by a student class of 2019, Maisha Moss. And there's a quote on the front that says, ‘In sisterhood there was comfort.’ And I think it's just the perfect example of what it was like going to Mount Holyoke College as a Black student. It just talks about the past, 100 years at Mount Holyoke and how Blackness has developed over time, what Black students look like, what they were studying, the founding of the student organizations and the Betty Shabazz Center, which is our cultural center, all those kinds of key historical moments at the college. Being a Black student at Mount Holyoke, that was something that really drew me in as a young person in 2018 starting college. I had dreams of going to HBCUs, but it was a PWI that gave me the most funding to be able to get my education. And it was just the better experience for my family coming from a low income background and being first gen. And so yeah, it was nice to know, okay, Black people exist here and we have traditions and spaces for ourselves and things like that.

“This is a journal that I kept. [shows interviewer her personal journal] In the summer of 2007, and it's really interesting to look back through and see my words at that time. It was a journal that I kept while I did a study abroad in Dakar, Senegal, and on Goree Island in Senegal when I was a junior or going into my junior year of college. That was a really transformative experience for me. Prior to attending university, and I actually attended Alabama State University, an HBCU, I did not have a good understanding of ... or my identity was not really rooted in my blackness. I am a biracial Black woman. My mother is white. I grew up in a small town in Alabama. I grew up around both my mom's family and my dad's family. My parents were married until I was 14. It's not that I didn't know I was Black, but I didn't really kind of know what that meant until I went to college and was around so many college-educated, very smart, goal-oriented, achievement-oriented Black people. I'm the first person in my family to go to college straight out of high school on either side of my family. I had not had that exposure before to other high achieving scholastic Black people. I got a lot of really, really wonderful experiences while I was at Alabama State. But probably the most transformational was having the opportunity to do that study abroad. One, I never even thought that was something that would be in the cards for me at all. But the great thing about attending an HBCU was that there were a lot of opportunities that probably would not have been available to me at had I gone to a PWI and being able to go home as it were, was one of those. I spent almost two months living with a family right on Goree Island, which is right off the coast of Dakar in Senegal. It was a cultural immersion project. It was also a cultural preservation project. We spent time exploring, taking photos and doing research on Goree Island, a specific museum there that is home to the basis for a sister museum that is actually in Louisiana. But being able to go back through and read back through those memories and just think about who I was at the time. It's really interesting because this is a great snapshot of me at 19 or 20 and at 35. Now, I am a completely different person than the woman who wrote in this journal. But it was really, really nice to go back and read. I fell in love with a person and also fell in love with the place while I was there. I had so many incredible experiences that I had almost really forgotten about. But this is a really cool snapshot of who I was at the time. It's something that I now have saved in the special place where my important documents and things like that are for my children one day, because it's important for me for them to know the woman that I am outside of just being their mama. You know what I mean?

“This is from a fashion show that we did at West Chester.And so what I wrote about as far as a memorable black experience in college is just our experiences. And one, having and being in the fashion shows. And then, two, traveling to other schools to see them. I always thought it was this really cool thing. And I remember even thinking to myself like, wow, this is just a bunch of black people coming together in the same space as a community to really just experience joy. And I think the big part of it was that it was the idea of fashion and dance merged together. It was just this shared culture between all of us. And then there was even a point in time where I was heavily involved with the fashion club at West Chester, and we would have tryouts. And, I mean, the turnout would be tremendous. There was always tons of people. We even had so many opportunities where we were working with fashion designers who were located in Philly. They didn't go to our school per se, but they knew that there was space in community and people really wanted to keep going to and having these fashion shows. And so this picture just always reminds me of the hustle and bustle of it, the fun, the planning, and just the community that we always felt with having fashion shows again.”

“So, this first one, this is from my probate, when I joined my sorority, and this was my final semester. Not only was this the final semester, but it was the end of the final semester. Okay. So, that was another experience. I studied abroad for the first time as an undergraduate, and that experience of going to London, I met people from all different countries. These are just a few of the people that I met, and I have kept in touch with a lot of those people. This was back in 2007, and I'm still involved in their lives. They're involved in mine. I've been to weddings, I've visited them in their home countries. It's part of what made it so that here I am now, currently in Ghana.
"Been a year." So, the people in my sorority are who helped me figure out how to find this person, do this thing, find a place. They helped me find a place to live. They helped me connect with the people that I needed to connect with at the university to do my research. They have been my support. I ended up being sick, and they're the ones that made me my soup, and that told me to go to this hospital, and everything. So those two things, joining the sorority, and studying abroad, are the most significant things that are influencing what's happening in my life currently.”

“So, during one of our summer sessions at my predominantly white institution, there were maybe 30 or so black students on campus for summer session. During the summer session you might only have eight or 10 credits, so there was a lot of free time. I don't even know how it came together, but we all decided to play this game called Jailbreak. It's kind of like the old game hide and seek. Everyone who played was a black student, we're in this expansive campus and we're running and hiding and catching one another and it was just so much fun. It was just us and we're all in our late teens, early twenties, but we were out there like children just having a great time. No one bothered us and no one was concerned about why all of these kids running around campus. The freedom and the youthfulness of that moment just really stuck out for me, so that's my moment.”

“So this is really interesting, but mine goes back to middle school. So my elementary school was a K through eight elementary school, and certainly the high school that I was feeding into was Woodlawn High School. So in my K through eight schools, we had quote unquote, we couldn't use the term valedictorian, so they took who got the highest score on the eighth-grade standardized test. And so I got the highest score on the eighth-grade standardized test. So we have an eighth-grade graduation and all of that. So fast-forward to that summer, you do orientation and things like that for your high school and you pick your schedule. And so the first day of high school in ninth grade, I'm sitting in one of my, I think it was our homeroom, and on the intercom they called on the intercom 20, 25 names and was like, "All of you report to the auditorium, get your books, get everything." We're freaking out. We are just like, "What's happening?" We get into the auditorium and they say, "This summer our school was approved to be a law and government magnet school. You are our first honors class, here is your new schedule." And we were like, "So wait, how did you choose this?" And so I guess they went through and chose the top 25, 30 students who had the highest entrance scores or whatever for the high school. And so I had all this different math and foreign language. And all right, for the foreign language, the only thing you can pick is what do you want? Spanish or French. And so I chose French, but that just really stands out to me. What's interesting is I had the same course classes all four years with the same 28 students. We only differed by which courses we took for foreign language. So some of those students I didn't have in my foreign language, but we all took the law and government courses. Our high school had a moot courtroom in our high school. So that was just really interesting. And these 28 people we're friends to this day. And I give that story just because of, I think that really shaped me even thinking about, "Oh, I'm smart. I have this trajectory." Many of us who were in the honors class, we got special advising around which colleges we wanted to go to. One of our law and government professors rented a van and took all of us down to the University of Alabama and some other college trips. And so yeah, I just think that was really formative in helping me think, yes, I can go to college. Consequently, I thought I was going to be a lawyer. And once you get to college, things change. I guess it's never too late. But yeah. So I'll start right there.”

“So the picture that I chose, I did my undergraduate work at Grambling State University. It's an HBCU in northern Louisiana in Grambling. If you're familiar with Louisiana, maybe you're not, but it's close to Shreveport. So I was on the court, the Royal Court. So we had elected positions. We had Miss Grambling State, we had Miss Freshman, Miss Sophomore. So I was Miss Sophomore during my undergraduate work. And that was probably one of the most memorable experiences that I had. I think more so too as a black woman, it is an elected position on campus, very much... A lot of the pageantry, you had to do a pageant, and there was a swimsuit contest, an evening gown contest. So there were a lot of aspects of that as well that was attached to the experience. So I think being a part of what it meant to be considered royalty on campus, but just also being a part of an experience with other black women on campus who were in these more higher profile roles on campus. We had a responsibility to implement a certain platform on campus to get students in our class onboard with a certain initiative that we implemented or that was our idea to try to help students on campus. So mine was about retention of sophomore students. So that was a pretty memorable experience that I had, having a chance to travel with the university and also speak on behalf of the university. They would take us to high schools to recruit other students. So it was probably my most memorable experience.”

“So I have a picture here from when I graduated from college with one of my friends. She was also a woman of color. It was a day that represented resilience. It represented that I'm an overcomer because there was a lot that I experienced during my years in college and even prior to attending college. But it represented just a moment of bliss and gratitude that I had made it through all of the years of college, even when there were times of uncertainty and loss in my life.”

“So for me, I'm a first gen college graduate. I was from a low income single parent household from inner city Akron, Ohio. And so, I had the privilege of being a part of Access program. I had part of Upward Bound TRIO. I also had an unconventional pathway through college. I transferred twice. So I had three institutions. I was trying to figure out, I feel like I was just winging it the whole time. And I often give credit to my experience in Upward Bound is not just getting me there, but everything that we practiced all for those years actually got me to the finish line. And when I graduated undergrad, even though I transferred twice and all of that, by the time I graduated, I was also a mother. And so, I have a picture where I'm at graduation, my daughter's on my hip, you know what I mean? I've got my daughter in my hand. And that was probably the most meaningful photo I have, I think from undergrad, just because that could have discouraged me, but it really pushed me even further to get to the finish line. And so, being able to graduate and she was still here, that was a big moment for me. And I went straight through. So I laugh because there were some classes where I'm like, I don't have no babysitter. So everybody's passing her around or I'm rocking that carrier while we... So even I went straight through and got my master's. She grew up okay, mommy's got class, mommy's writing a paper. She had her own little notebook. She's scribbling because I got to do my homework. So it's been a journey. So when I graduated this past a year ago with my doctorate, we reinvented a photo where she's on my hip when I got my master's degree. And then her 21-year-old self was on my hip when I got my doctorate just to kind of recreate. She's been this whole journey, she's been here with me.”

“Okay. When I was a student at... My undergraduate degree's from Michigan State University, as well as having worked there, which I never would've thought. And I was first-gen. My mother and grandmother, who happened to be the two women that you see. The one with the pearls is my grandmother, the woman next to her is my mother. And they were, back in the day, housekeepers. And so, my grandmother was a, I'd say community activist, very grounded in our community and was the one who, I think, at the end of the day, resulted in why I do what I do. But this article that you see... As I said, I was first in the family to go to college. And I've always been assertive around justice. And I grew up in an era of this tension between the non-violent civil rights efforts of Dr. King and then the Black Panther Party and the Black Power Movement, as we called it back in the day. And so, my grandmother... I'll just say this, she referred to me as one of the most prejudiced light-skinned people that she knew. And so, it's like, okay. And I get it. And I think what helps illustrate this... We loved each other. My grandmother was the greatest influence in my life. I love my mother and everyone else, but something about the grandmother.”

“It's a quote by Sonya Renee Taylor. And even though I would say that it is something that describes part of my experience, it's something that I haven't realized until I've gotten older. But at the same time I realized that that moment was part of that foundation. So anyway, it says, "What she wants is the thing that she has to give herself." That the thing we want so desperately from everybody else in the world, which is for them to reflect back to us, our lovability is a thing we must give to ourselves. Yeah. So I was like, yeah, spend a lot of time wanting to be seen or heard or whatever it is, but just understanding that it's important to be able to see and feel that for yourself. Love yourself. Because a lot of times I had spent, it was two sides of it. There was one side where I was wanting to do what I wanted to do and then the other side was trying to please other people to fit in, to be accepted. I'm a dancer, choreographer, artist as well and stuff like that. And at the time, I didn't accept my body, I didn't accept how I looked. Even though now I see that I was smaller, I couldn't see myself. And so it was a tug of war between I'm just going to go for it and use these things to empower me that are kind of turned against me. But at the same time then it was always like, well, I want to be seen. I want to be heard. I want to be in that piece. I want to be accepted. Certain things like that.”

“It happens to be I participated in a pageant, in the Ms. Black and Gold pageant for Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated. Mind you, I've always kind of been academically inclined. I've always been 4.2 GPA, 30 ACT, presidential scholar. Academics kind of were my world. When I had the opportunity, they were like, "Well, there's a pageant coming." I am a member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Incorporated, so I was like, "Why not try it?" I wasn't really interested, but I was like, "When would you get another opportunity? Let's go for it." At the time, I can be just as transparent. My self-confidence in my image as a bigger woman, more plus size, I didn't see a lot of women like me until I went to Alabama State University, which is the HBCU, the oldest HBCU, Alabama State, that I really found my place and saw a bigger woman modeling and kind of getting it together, so I wanted to try it. It was an absolutely amazing experience. I actually was Miss Congeniality and Miss Gold.”

“I'm really thinking, should I go get that jacket too? But I also pledged my sophomore year, and this is the line jacket. And so my sophomore year we were the youngest people on the line. So that would've been, I was on the dance team my freshman year and all throughout college, but then as an a sophomore, junior and senior year. So that was a large part of me developing a sense of community understanding, learning what it meant to be a woman, a leader, meeting other like-minded people who motivated me and inspired me, one of whom is a researcher on this project. And so I am forever indebted to my undergrad institution for introducing me to my sorority sisters and also just like I said, a way of doing life, business. And so that was a major part of my collegiate experience, and just the start of me being the leader that I think I've developed into in terms of my professional career. And so I brought my line jacket, but again, like I said, I could have bought my gold star jacket, which I was on the dance team too, and I could run and go get that. But yeah, those two experiences I think grounded my time at Xavier in terms of having a sense of community and then being able to learn to work in teams and being able to have people around me who I would say were growing with me. Because I didn't know who I was at the time, but we grew together.”

“I'm going to pick a quote that we often don't use for adults, but "It takes a village." My collegiate experience was really about me finding my own personal village throughout my whole time at my university, as well as leading up to graduation. And even graduating, being able to celebrate with my village, because I was the first among our group to complete school, that felt good, it felt helpful, and it's just really leaning into those people that I knew I could lean on when college was a little rough, at times. I think we use it a lot for kids.”

“I'm a mom of four and of course my role with just going to school wasn't the traditional route. I wasn't able to stay on a campus or anything like that because I had to raise my kids and most likely work my job. So, I didn't go to the traditional route. When I did first go back to school, I went for my associate's and I was working full-time, and I would go after work. And I remember me getting off at 5:00 and my class would start at 6:00, so I remember rushing to get to class, and it took me a really long time to get done with that particular program just because I couldn't take three and four classes. I could only do one or maybe two at the most at a time. So, I was able to finish that program and was able to finish my bachelor's degree as well online. But I am just very focused on going as far as I can with especially being a mom and especially being a Black woman. I just want to show other women, especially who are African-American and do have kids, who may have kids at a very early age, that they are able to do things, too. They just might have to go at a different pace or maybe a different route, but they are able to accomplish things as well. I really just want to be able to set that example for my kids and other women and just go as far as I possibly can, as far as my education goals, as far as my career. I want to push myself to do the very best that I can, just to set that example for other women, also my daughters, also my son, just to be able to set that example.”

“I was going back and forth between some really, I think, pivotal or impactful things that happened during college, and I was trying to steer away from Greek life, but honestly, pledging and just being a Delta was so integral to my college experience. I don't think I could separate those two things out from each other, because being a Delta was being in college for me, almost. And so I would just have to say, I went through my phone to find some old pictures of us, one from our chapter, like our official chapter photo. We were all in Black, and I just remember the reason that it is so memorable is because, number one, I spent so much time with my line sisters, my chapter, but also because it challenged me in a lot of ways. It was a lot of areas for growth, for interpersonal developments, navigating friendships and challenging friendships, and wonderful sisterhood, and also growing as a professional woman, and being able to be given responsibility in a safe space, where I was a chaplain for a year. I could come and speak in a chapter meeting, which felt so nervous for me, but really, they would receive me with such grace. And so anyway, all those things are the reason that just, generally, pledging and being a member of my chapter was so memorable and just a super big part of my college experience.”

“I think that for me, I had a traditional four-year college experience from my undergrad experience, but having my family come out to graduation, having friends who actually drove about nine, 10 hours to come see me graduate because they were rooting for me throughout my entire life, that was a really highlight for me to really actually sit and bask in everything that I had done during college and to actually feel that sense of accomplishment. I think during my undergraduate years, everything was just in such a rush, such a blur. There was so much, on my college campus, we called it a bubble.
So you're in this bubble for four years and things are just going and happening and you're doing things, but you're not really processing them. But for me, the graduation, particularly my black student graduation, where we actually had the chance to walk across the stage and have your family come out and sit and celebrate you, that for me was the most memorable, despite all the heat, it was one of the most memorable experiences.”

“I think my memory is even before I stepped foot on my campus, I got an email from a organization on campus called the Annie Day Shepard Scholars. It's an organization for first generation black women only. And out of all the schools that I applied to that I was interested in, it was the first school with organization that felt like they were specifically for me, I want to say. We have something here specifically to help you to put you in place to where you need to be. This is what it's about and if you're interested, I reached out to the cohort leader and honestly without that organization I don't even think I would have survived my four years of college. So I think that's most of my memories with college comes from that organization. They helped me, they brought me out of my shell. I was really closed off. I wish I can actually show you the pictures. My freshman year I had my hoodie on really closed off and by the time I got to my second year, the second semester, I was a completely different person. All because of this organization that wanted to see me win, but I was the one holding myself back.”