| Realities of Academic Research for URM Scientists |
“What is it that’s different about the minority experience? The obvious one is that there is no one that looks like you in the room, even in 2014. That places some pressure on you. Because we are all capable of doing this work, there’re just some other barriers that hinder it and that’s one of them.” “You have to be five times better for them to recognize you.” “This pressure to outperform their peers along with trying to juggle clinical/teaching and research responsibilities often resulted in participants feeling as though they were drowning.” “(It’s) a lot of taking off and putting on hats, several changes of hats within the same week. I’ve tried to separate things as much as possible, putting clinical responsibilities on one half of week and research on other, but it gets difficult.” “I’m the only African American in my department. From the health disparities standpoint, people, other faculty members, my colleagues are on this bandwagon, ‘Oh, we should do health disparities research! Go work in this Black community.’ They really are just there because it’s a topic to be in rather than a real passion for it. Sometimes, I have no resentment but I’m like: look you’re just doing this to say you are doing research in Black communities; not that they are really interested in improving the community.” “That sense of isolation is there. I definitely feel like it gets in my way. If it were not for PRIDE and being able to come together with other minorities, with similar backgrounds and experiences…it’s good just to know that you are not the only one out there. You form bounds, connections; not just professional connections, but personal, friend connections because we spend two weeks together.” |
| The PRIDE Effect |
“PRIDE has been somewhat of a lighthouse bringing me back into focus. Even though we are not interacting daily, they serve as a lighthouse to refocus on research.” “I wasn’t hired to do research but being in PRIDE reminded me about my passion and goals. They kept me on task and pushed me to strive higher, kept me focused and gave me drive. The program helps me to keep pushing for an academic career. Coming back and seeing people doing it reminds me of where I need to be, what I need to be doing and how I need to get there.” “The other thing about this program is that they provide a lot of hope. You always feel like you can do it. You see other people getting grants and doing it and you feel like you can too. It’s a refreshing reprieve. Outside in the academic world, you are always hearing that it’s very hard to get grants, that no one is getting grants, don’t even try. You don’t hear ‘Yes, so you didn’t get it this time but we are going to help you and you’re going to get it next time.’” “PRIDE participants are getting grants and are on minority supplements. Did that funding come from PRIDE? I’m not sure but I have to believe that PRIDE helped.” “In this program, I get feedback from people I know and trust. It forces me to go back and improve.” “There’s something about who’s running this program. What’s making it work is the cohesiveness and family nature of the program. It’s been ubiquitous throughout the program.” “As far as I know nothing else provides the focus and the type of mentorship that PRIDE does. Doing things from the perspective of being an underrepresented minority and working with people that understand some of the unique challenges that come along with that and help you to apply things in that light [it] doesn’t exist in most places.” “The trouble we face is mentoring. Even when they put it in place for you, it’s more symbolic than anything else. The issue with PRIDE is that the mentors are someone like you, who went through what you went through so they understand what you are going through. If they can make it I can make it also. In a lot of programs for minorities the PI is nonminority and probably can’t relate to what you are going through. I can’t go to my white colleagues and say how heavy this heat is I’m experiencing. They won’t understand that experience.” “I value having other colleagues I can talk to on professional level. Don’t have a lot of colleagues that look like me. Certain things…I don’t have to explain, they get it. It’s understood. I don’t have to explain my challenges.” |
| Research Skills and Professional Training |
“I like the fact that it’s structured. I think early on you have a lot of expectations and things you have to do but sometimes you’re not told exactly how to get there and you’re kind of just expected to kind of know. But obviously if you’ve never done it before … PRIDE gives you a structure and sort of tells you how to do it.” “If I didn’t have PRIDE I probably wouldn’t learn some of the new tools and techniques I’ve learned.” “My grant writing skills have improved, we don’t have additional training for grantsmanship at the university I am at. Making connections to NIH program officers really helped. Small things like that, which are important long term across the big picture of things are what make PRIDE work. It probably would not be provided to me, I don’t know about everybody else. It’s important for minority groups because there is in a way a good ole’ boys club. Tommy Sue over there has that connection but we don’t. We don’t have that connection to the folk who are making the big decisions.” “These skills helped me polish my specific aims, do a better job and feel more confident.” “[I’ve gained] skills to communicate my research ideas in a clear and precise way … in a way that highlights my own strengths. The mock reviews helped identify the skills we’ve gained. I’ve learned how to play the game to really advance at my academic institution. Writing my specific aims page, who do you need to site, how to identify that person, how to set priorities, these things gave me a better sense of where I’m going out the gate.” “Not only has it transitioned me to research in co-morbidity of chronic mental disease and physical disease, it has given me some more intangible skill sets that I really needed, desperately needed as junior faculty.” “Being part of a team has helped a great deal. My doctoral program was unique. It did not have the conventional research lab set up. I never had the benefit of working in a well-established research lab. I was able to pursue topics I really wanted to but I felt I was just one or two steps behind my contemporaries in terms of level of production, in terms of research manuscripts, and grant application submissions. Those are the major areas in which PRIDE has helped. My productivity in producing in research and scholarship has sky rocketed. Before PRIDE, I believe I had just on published paper. Since then I have co-led six papers and I’m on four others and this has happened in the space of a year.” |
| Importance of Mentorship |
“We have a formalized program at my institution and you have someone who is supposed to do the types of things that happen here as part of the PRIDE program and you would think it would work better because that person is there with you day to day. Even though it’s a formalized program it doesn’t happen in a consistent way. And I think that’s because of the commitment of the pride staff. Not just the mentors but the people who give the lectures as we’ll. If it’s one thing that stands out I think it’s the commitment to mentoring underrepresented junior scientists and that looks different than many institutions where scientists may not have that same commitment to underrepresented scientists. Not necessarily because they mean to but just because they are not aware.” “The Principal Investigators were inspiring mentors whose reputation is admired…their successful record, the production machine. They are teaching it and showing you that it does work. It’s not just a theory. You may have challenges at your own institution but at least you know it’s possible.” “Having PRIDE mentors who are like you and who have made it motivated us to feel we could make it as well.” “PRIDE Program looks different than at other institutions because PRIDE mentors understand the lived experience of being a minority scientist.” “That opportunity would not have been there. I wouldn’t have even known about the program and even if I had it probably would not have happened. I would have been on the waiting list somewhere and it just probably would not have happened. That was an invaluable experience. Being able to see from the inside out how it works.” “Mentoring is key. The more mentoring, the more chances you have of getting funded. Without mentors in research there are no roads to blaze.” |
