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L O O K A T M U L T I C U L T U R A L I S M B A Y L O R P R E - H E A L T H
O C T 2020
service & diversity Baylor University Chapter
W I T H I N
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Table of Contents Opening Faculty Sponsors ..................................................................... 1 Editorial Page ........................................................................... 2 Author’s Note & Letter to the Student Body ................ 3 Introduction.............................................................................. 4 Faculty Interviews Dr. Dwayne D. Simmons...................................................... 5 Dr. Jesse W. Jones ................................................................ 16 Dr. Rizalia Klausmeyer ..................................................... 20 Student Interviews Anjali Ravee ............................................................................29 Colin Cummings ................................................................... 38 Dominique Johnson ............................................................ 49 Michael Rankins ................................................................... 55 Veronica Prince .................................................................... 68 Closing Conclusion............................................................................... 79 Letter to Prospective Students ....................................... 81 Additional Resources .............................................................. 82 MAPS Mission and Mosaic Submissions ........................ 83 MOSAIC 0
Advisors
Advisor, Division of Student Life Dr. Elizabeth D. Palacios Ph.D. Dean of Student Development
Faculty Advisor Dr. Maria Cecilia de Mesa Ph.D. Senior Lecturer: Chemistry/Biochemistry
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Editorial Page
Editor-in-Chief Albert Sarpong Sachse, TX Major: Biochemistry Minor: Business and Administration Pre-Medical Class of 2021
Managing Editor Jala Broadnax Round Rock, Texas Major: Biology Minor: Biochemistry Pre-Medical Baylor Alumnus Class of 2019
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Author’s Note and Letter to the Student Body Dear Reader, This first issue of the article contains first-hand accounts and perspectives from students and faculty in regard to the advancement and improvement of the status of diversity inclusion within the Pre-health community at Baylor University. The interviews conducted offer current and prospective students an opportunity to read what steps the faculty are taking to further advance heterogeneity within Baylor Pre-Health. To the readers who are of the current student body, it is imperative that you understand that those selected for an interview possess backgrounds that are unique. Thus their paths through pre-med and towards medicine will likely not be similar to that of your own. Rest assured their goals within medicine are still prominent, their stories are still relevant, and with that, their knowledge of Pre-Health is viable and worth the investment and understanding. Keeping an open mind as a preprofessional while looking to learn more about the intricacies of what the Baylor pre-health has to offer will allow you as a reader to be well versed in making more educated decisions based on your specific circumstances within your daily student life. Opportunities are present through every conversation, every email, and every chance that you as a student undertake to expand your mind and your capacity for acquiring wisdom and knowledge. Sincerely, Albert K. Sarpong
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Introduction Mosaic is a new annual periodical developed by Baylor University’s Multicultural Association of Pre-Health Students and focuses on aspects of both cross-culturalism and academia. Multiculturalism has risen exponentially over the last two decades here at Baylor University. The objective of Mosaic is to encourage diversity on campus and culminate the impacts of the increased cultural diversity by providing a platform for undergraduate students and faculty to express their unique cultural perspectives on a wide array of subjects from the sciences to humanities. The main issues we are looking to tackle will be in relation to diversity and diversity inclusion across campus in the present and in the future. We want students to have a platform to express perspectives and viewpoints from an array of ideas that may or may not necessarily compare identically, but in principle, can shed a different light on specific topics and resolutions. With Mosaic, we intend to give people of different backgrounds and upbringings a voice in academia to show that Baylor can represent the best of all students and faculty. In addition to the feature articles, Mosaic will also include highlights on research progress and incorporate creative pieces such as fiction and poetry post its first issue. Through Mosaic, the Baylor community can read about other students and faculty who possess similar or different cultural backgrounds and experiences to their own and potentially influence others to view the world from various perspectives.
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Dr. Dwayne D. Simmons Ph.D.
Biology Chair and Director of Baylor Transdisciplinary Research Undergraduate Experience program. He currently performs research on aging brain function related to hearing and balance, neurodegeneration, and neuro-immune responses. Most recently, his research focuses on the effects of Oncomodulin elicits on the regeneration of the spinal nerve following injury.
Q. Can you please state your name for me and what your position at Baylor is? A. Dwayne D. Simmons. I am a full professor and also chair of the Department of Biology. I hold the endowed chair of the Cornelia Marshall Smith endowed chair. And I also am a professor in Psych/Neuro. Q. Thank you so much for that little brief introduction. Can you please tell me what your experience has been in academia as a minority here at Baylor? A. Well, in general, probably being a minority here at Baylor is no different than being a minority at any of the other institutions that I have been a part of. And I did my undergraduate at Pepperdine in California. I did my graduate work at Harvard. I have had faculty positions at UCLA and also at the medical school of Washington University in St. Louis and now, here at Baylor. So that aspect of being a minority really has not changed in those various venues. As an underrepresented minority, I get asked to do a lot of things. Especially when I was at UCLA, I was pretty much asked to be on every single
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committee that ever dealt with minorities. Here I am not asked to do that just because being chair, I have a little bit of a buffer from being asked that question. Although my dean keeps saying there are so many things, I want you to do. But one of the things that I have done is that rather than being asked to do things, I have adopted the approach of being more proactive. And I just go ahead. And I am always creating programs that are related to helping increase diversity on campus. That has something that I view as being really, really important. So when I got here, I started a program in the sciences called BTRUE, which is the Baylor Transdisciplinary Research Undergraduate Experience. And although it is open to everyone and anyone because I am the director, I have an eye towards using it as an opportunity to be proactive, especially for minority students. We have the McNair program, which I am not directly involved in, but indirectly involved in. But I try to make sure that McNair students have an opportunity in BTRUE, for example, to do their summer undergraduate research. We are trying to write grants. The current one that we are trying to write is the HHMI grant, which HMMI is probably the largest private biomedical funding entity in the world. They have billions of dollars that they spend. Well, I do not know if they spend billions, but they spend probably very close to a billion on research and different research mechanisms. A lot of it is just pure research in biomedicine, but a significant amount of that money is used to fund programs that help increase inclusiveness and one of the grants that I am working on right now is HMMI inclusivity grant, which is called I3. So Inclusive Excellence Round Three. We are trying to figure out ways to increase retention in our S.T.E.M and specifically in biology and chemistry as well as ways to enhance the experience of first-generation and ethnic underrepresented groups.
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Q. Perfect! That flows slightly into my next question. Thank you. That was really good A. So that is why I meant that I also wrote a grant. Research Experience for Undergraduates, SITE grant, REU-SITE Grant. And that is to bring in undergraduates from HBCU and from HIS’s, Hispanic institutions and minority-serving institutions emphasized overall. I have several that I connected with, Delaware State University and University System of Puerto Rico and also Tennessee State University. Q. What changes have you seen at Baylor to aid minorities in feeling included at this PWI? We can focus on a broad spectrum and then tie it in specifics other than what you have mentioned with the pre-health department. A. I cannot really speak to what changes have happened. I have been here for three years. In that three-year time period, what I have been impressed by is that Baylor made a commitment a decade ago, or maybe slightly more than that, to increase the diversity of its undergraduate student population. And I would say that when you walk across campus, I would say that Baylor is as diverse in terms of the undergraduate student population as UCLA, which is hugely diverse. What Baylor does not have probably is as many Hispanic students, but definitely as many African American students. I have been really impressed by what they said a decade ago which was 'we're going to do this thing' and they did it and they are continuing to do it and that is extremely impressive in my mind. We need to increase the diversity of our faculty. The staff is extremely diverse, but the faculty are not. And, you know, I was part of that. Here at Baylor, especially in the sciences, we have several things going against us when we are recruiting faculty. Number one is the Mission fit. We want faculty who have a commitment to some kind of faith community and although many scientists believe in a higher power or God, not many scientists MOSAIC 7
have an active faith. Baylor really wants people here who have an active faith life. So that narrows the pool already. And then if you have someone, especially in the sciences who is a credible scientist, that helps since we are trying to become an R1 University (Tier 1 Research University). We really want people who are actively researching and able to get grants and such things like that. That pool is going to be small, especially when you put on there any kind of racial or ethnic criteria. You are looking at a very small pool because we just do not have a lot of people who are diverse and pursuing Ph.D.’s/ M.D.-Ph.D.’s. And when we do have those people, they are actively sought after. I get asked for positions all the time. It is just because I have a research record, I have published papers, etc... And I just happen to be African American. Q. For my next question, let us say you are here for the next 10, 15 years. What do you hope to see starting with a shift for the student population and then a shift in the faculty population? A. Well, for one, I want to see more students of color pursuing Ph.D. and M.D.Ph.D. here at Baylor because I think we could make a huge impact on the biomedical research community. Then number two, I want to see a greater number of color on our staff. So we have two issues actually at Baylor, because Baylor also, especially in the sciences, has not fared as well in terms of gender issues. For example, we have way too many male faculty members who are in the research ranks. We have plenty of female faculty who are in the lecturing ranks, but not as many in the research ranks. For Biology, now we only have one female faculty member who is tenured. It should not be that way. We have 12 tenured faculty and one who happens to be an African American woman, Dr. Bessie Kebaara Ph.D. There is no reason why we should only have one female with tenure.
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One of our goals is to try to increase the number of women who are going to get tenure here as research faculty. And then, of course, faculty of color in the lecture ranks because although we have plenty of women who are lecturers, all of them are Caucasian except for one and that is Dr. Mojgan Parizi-Robinson Ph.D. It should not be that way either. My goal has been to actually increase the number of male faculty who are in the lecturing ranks because there are so many women and we need to bring in more men. I have been able to bring in two. Q. As a faculty member, when you see an increase in diversity among prehealth students, how do you feel that further inclusion can be created in order to accommodate those students, in order for them to feel a bigger part of the actual pre-health experience? A. Great question. I cannot speak specifically about pre-health, but I can say in general, for anyone who is going on to any kind of graduate program. I think what we have to do is create synergies and strategies for more or greater inclusiveness. It is easy to say that it is hard to actually do that, but we need to have programs. So one of the things that we are going to do for Biology 1305 possibly is we are going to create probably a 1001 level class. What we are going to do is people look at 1305 as being one of those gatekeeper courses or weed out and it is not designed or meant to be that, but that's the student's perception of it. What we are going to do is basically anyone who scores below on the first exam like below a 60 or 65 or something along those lines will be required to go to a study skills, a bio study skills course. So on the first exam, we are going to look at all those scores and all the sections where they have people below 65 say you have to go to this. And if you do it, you will get like five points on your first.
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That is added back to your first exam. That is huge right? This course will meet every week and the whole point is- because what happens typically and you probably have direct experience with it, I know I did as an undergradif I don't do as well as I want on the first exam or whatever, all I do is I work harder, I don't change how I work. All I say is that I have to put more time into it. But if what I had done did not work, even if you put more time into it, it was still not going to work. I had to figure out why then change the strategy. Statement: Working smarter, not harder. A. Exactly. And that is one thing that undergraduates fail at. What we are going to do - and hopefully as early as next fall, we will see - is to try to get this class so it would be open to everybody initially because it would be a class. It will be credit, no credit. But the students who on the first exam score below a certain score will be forced to enroll in this course. I think it will help. It addresses everybody. But in addressing everybody, we are going to hit specifically, I think because if you look at the data, it is the Hispanic students, African American students and first-gen students who do poorly in Biology 1305 as a group. I mean, as a group, they just do less well than the majority group. And mostly that is because of study skills. I know I was fortunate and went to a really hard and tough high school. But if I had gone to my public high school, I would have been valedictorian easily. And would not know how to study. That happened to me actually going from junior high to high school. I was in junior high. I was in a public junior high and I just showed up for class and basically got an A. Then I went to high school in this, hard, top-notch, allwhite high school and that first year was hard. I had to learn how to study differently. Before I could just open the book and read it. I could retain things and regurgitate on the test. No big deal. But they were asking for a little bit more. My point is that I think a lot of our students of color have an experience
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that is like that and so they are really good, they are really smart, but they have not learned how to study? Because they are really good and really smart. That is one of the ways by addressing early on with 1305 and 1306 in the first term. So if I can get this course off the books and actually taught next semester. I just identified a teacher as of today. That part is that. I just have to actually get it. Hopefully, I will make it into an official course. Those are the kinds of things, and that's actually the reason that I took this position as chair because, in my position at UCLA, where I was directing a lot of undergraduate research programs especially for minority students and created a whole bunch of stuff that was really cool, I just felt that my impact was more limited. I wanted to have a greater impact on more students. I ran what was called a MARC program at UCLA (Maximizing Access to Research Careers) where we took 16 students and it was basically a scientific boot camp. They had to maintain a certain GPA. It was really structured. All the students are either Ph.D. students or M.D.-Ph.D. right now at Harvard, all the best schools. They were already smart. So we just took smart kids and just made them better. I wanted to have a broader effect. I love my kids at UCLA. I was at a conference a couple of months ago and several of the latter bred ones who graduated later were there. It was so cool to see them. My previous student is amazing. She is at an M.D.-Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts. She is a neuroscience person and her first lab that I put her into at UCLA, she flopped miserably, and she was doing poorly. But a lot of counseling, a lot of encouragement, getting her into the right lab environment. All of the above and making her stick with it. She is doing amazing. And I have story after story like that. Q. What advice would you recommend to prospective students and how would you help them frame their mindsets appropriately to attack ambition here?
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A. For one, really take advantage of your faculty. Most of the faculty who are here are simply here for you. Currently I am recruiting my research faculty. This is the season of recruitment right now and we have four active searches going on. But one of the things they tell the faculty is that we not only want outstanding researchers, but we also want people who are passionate about teaching. And although they will not do very little teaching in one course, two courses at max per year, because we want them to do their research, I still want people who are passionate about teaching. I would say, right off the bat, get to know the faculty really, really, really well. Most of the faculty will be your advocates. Do not wait until June of your senior year to try to get to know faculty. Go to office hours, go visit them as much as possible. Take them out for a coffee break. We have a Starbucks in this building. It is easy to do. And get involved in lab research. Because you will find that it is not that every lab will be initially compatible with your ideas. I had a student at UCLA who wanted to be an oncologist. His mother has suffered through breast cancer. And as you may know, African Americans, we have a higher proportion of triple-negative breast cancer than anybody else. We are making some breakthroughs in that area. It is just amazing. His mother made it through. And so he wants to be an oncologist. He got battered his freshman year and I saw him in his sophomore year. He had low selfesteem. 'I should switch over to psychology' because people were telling him and they were not saying, 'you're black, you should be a psychologist', but that's kind of what happens. It is not something that people do intentionally. It is kind of interesting. It is not necessarily, ‘Oh, you're black’, but it's oh, ‘you're struggling, and you happen to be African-American’. Well, maybe you should switch over to social work. And those are all great things. He was being told to switch over to either psychology or social work. And guess what? My heart is in biology and physiology. I said, ok well, you do not want to lose your dreams. And that is what I tell everybody. Never give up on your dream. MOSAIC 12
Now, it may be that you are not cut out for a particular path toward that dream. But do not give up on the dream. You may have to alter your path. As I told him that you may have to alter your path, but do not give up on your dream. I told him, he said, ‘OK, I'm not.’ I do not work on cancer. I am a neuroscientist. But the basic tools and techniques of research are kind of the same. In labs, you have to learn how to do PCR. You have to learn stuff like that. So come into my lab, learn the basics, and then with that toolset, then go try to find a lab that you would like. So he did that. And then I had a student who was a native Indian from India. And he was like a 4.0 student. And so I paired Eric with him. Eric was at that point. I think he did not have a good grade point average. I think it was a 1.98 GPA. So below a 2.0, which cannot go anywhere. Even from UCLA, you are not going to go anywhere. He went on to graduate with over 3.0. He had his last four terms were straight A's. He did so because of several things. One, he stayed in my lab because he went on to say, why should I want to go anywhere else? "I'm learning what I need to learn, and I love the environment." And he was. And my native Indian student became one of his good, good buddies. Eric learned how to study from him and realized that he is just as smart as him. It was just a matter of how to study. And he is now doing Ph.D. cancer research at one of the best cancer facilities in the nation. He is doing super. When I met him, he was a 1.98 student, but it was not because he was not smart. So those are the kinds of things I recommend to students. This was really if you are interested in biomedicine, then you need to get into a lab. You just need to get into a lab, get into research as early as you can. And it may be that it will not be the right lab and you switch into another lab, ok fine. And then you work on your study skills. And you get to know faculty. Q. You have already answered this but how can you effectively succeed in your academics? What advice can you give to do that?
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A. The way I phrased it to MARC students at UCLA. You guys are very privileged. You are always standing on the shoulders of somebody else, always, and so one of your obligations is to make sure that you are lifting up the next generation. It is just one. It is because you have been helped. Then you have to help. I think college is an experience and you want to take advantage of that. There are some kids, of course, who go overboard. But the point being is there is balance. There is balance, right, so you really take advantage of these things and then do well so that then Baylor helps propel you to the next level. You do not slide by, no. There are institutions where you can slide by. This is not one of them. Another piece of advice to any young person coming is do not be afraid to seek out help. It is okay. That some of the best students are the ones who realize that. Early on. But it is hard because you have been at the top of the pole or usually, you are in that group then it is, 'I need help.' It is so important to do that early on. And that is why, again, we are going to try to create this study skills course to really help the students who obviously did not do well in that first exam. Let us see how we can change that and evolve you as a student.
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Final Regards: Dr. Dwayne Simmons Dr. Simmons’ comments here are important because it reminds us that the Baylor Science Building is bigger than just pre-med. For students that are looking to excel in science and gain doctorates despite whichever background you hail from, Baylor is constantly looking for new, more innovative ways to accommodate your needs and to motivate students to excel in a field that most would shy away from at first glance. Programs such as BTRUE and McNair exist to push students of all backgrounds further in a career in science that otherwise may not have been possible had they attended another university.
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Dr. Jesse W. Jones D.Sc.
Dr. Jones is currently a lecturer for Organic Chemistry I And Organic Chemistry II and a Professor of Chemistry His research has a focus on Organic Synthesis or organic compounds with biological significance within in vivo and in vitro systems
Q. What has your experience been like as a minority within the academic circles that you have been a part of. A. Well, just in general, it has been quite positive. I do not have any other comparisons other than my exposure in academics so together, I do not associate any stigma when that occurs. Q. Have you seen any changes at Baylor or throughout your career? A. With regards to Baylor, we have seen an increase in diversity both with faculty and students and staff. The overall university climate has generally changed partly. I guess some of the very strong religious symbols may have become more moderate as far as the overall environment is concerned. The quality of students seems to continue to improve each year. So there have been some positive changes that I have observed over my 30 years here at Baylor. Academics are kind of slow to change but the directional change of Baylor is going in a positive direction. Our football season this year is kind of MOSAIC 16
an indication of how things are getting better overall in terms of academic programs, facilities, and concepts of how to deliver our academic programs. All of that is being changed in concept and in step to many other institutions of Baylor’s caliber. Things are overall looking positive and strong. Q. As a faculty member, when you see the increase in diversity among prehealth students and in general, how do you feel that further inclusion can be created to accommodate students of multiple backgrounds looking for a chance to earn their career in health? A. Particularly in the sciences, we train some of the better students. The changes in special activities and programs are not needed in this area as which may be in areas because of the academic background of high caliber students that are attracted to science. In fact the activities and [programs] such as MAPS as which we watched develop, act as leaders not only in accommodating minorities but also setting the pace for other students as well. So in this area, I would say we are exemplary in terms of the success students are having and how they are coming in and making adjustments. We always expect to have some casualties, particularly in academically diverse as well as racially adverse environments. But a number of casualties are probably less than in other areas. It is consistent with the strong competitive nature of the sciences, particularly in the pre-health area. Q. What advice would you recommend that students outside of Baylor need to hear when they are thinking of becoming pre-health students at Baylor? How can they achieve success effectively in their academics and networking? A. Well, one of the things that Baylor is going for, particularly in the pre-health program, is that it is one of the more outstanding programs in the state. I am guessing it would be in the top 5 in most of the categories. Internally, the premed program has leadership that has developed over time to help accommodate incoming students so that should be very attractive to students
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knowing that the program has been well tested and proven. The products (students) that come out are probably the best kind of endorsement to the program as they go out further and practice nursing, medicine, and dentistry while showing great success. Maybe that is why we are still experiencing a very high increase in pre-medical, pre-dental, and pre-nursing students. That is probably the attracting quality and maybe that is the reason we are still experiencing a very high increase in students in pre-med, pre-dent, and beyond.
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Final Regards: Dr. Jesse W. Jones Dr. Jones is one of the longest-tenured professors here at Baylor. He has studied within the field of science for over 65 years proving that beyond undergrad, a life in science can be abundant and worthwhile. Dr. Jones has seen science evolve and change over the last 50 years. The introduction of Chemical Synthesis was groundbreaking in that it allowed researchers to synthesize naturally occurring complex chemical compounds from simpler compounds and Dr. Jones was one of the researchers working in the late 20th century to discover as many of these compounds as possible. His love for learning and teaching organic chemistry as well as being an African American in research has made him a pioneer in the community.
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Dr. Rizalia Klausmeyer Ph.D.
Dr. Klausmeyer was a lecturer here at Baylor from 2000 until 2008 and then a senior lecturer from 2008 until 2013. Associate Director of the Office of Prehealth Studies and Program Director of the Earle Hall Science and Health LLC from 2013-2018. Current Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research where she instructs and directs the students who are currently in the Science Research Fellows Programs.
Q. I am here meeting with Dr. Rizalia Klausmeyer, the Director of Science Research Fellows and Director of Undergraduate Research. Can you please tell me about yourself? A. I was born a long time ago in Puerto Rico, which is a Commonwealth of the United States. It was a regular family. I went to the University of Puerto Rico for my bachelor’s and I got a bachelor’s in chemistry, which I finished in 1991. Right away I came to Texas A&M in College Station in order to get a PhD. in Chemistry. After the PhD., I did what they call a postdoc, but mine was in industry. It was an industrial post-doc because I wanted to actually work for a company and that one was in Deer Park, Houston. So I worked for Roman House, Texas, which is, by the way, the biggest producer of sulfuric acid in the world. They also have a lot of cyanide in there and I used to work with cyanide. Right after I finished that, I got married to Kevin Klausmeyer, who is a professor here and together we went to the University of Illinois in Schempp, Urbana-Champaign. He was doing a postdoc there.
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I found a job as Director of the General Chemistry Labs there. I had about sixteen hundred students. It was a rotation of two weeks so that everybody would actually get to the lab. They also allowed me to teach the class, too. That is when I discovered that I am good at teaching. It was a much more unusual thing, but it was fun to be there. It was too cold though. After that, my husband, Kevin, got a job here at Baylor as a professor. I was supposed to be a stay at home mom but staying at home is a lot of work. It is easier to actually go to work than to stay at home with kids. So what happened was that as soon as we moved to Waco, one of the lecturers got sick and she was going to be out for two to three weeks and Kevin said, my wife has been teaching that so she can come and teach and take over. But the lady never came back. So I have been teaching ever since. So I have been teaching at Baylor since 2000. Normally my easiest class to teach, the one that I have to prepare the least is Organic Chemistry, because that is what I like. But right now, I am teaching our General Chemistry, which is kind of fun. Q. Recently you were once upon a time working in the Pre-Health Office and now that you transitioned into Science Research Fellows, can you describe what it was like to work in the Pre-Health Office meeting with students and then how you have been able to transition those skills you attained over there now into Science Research Fellows and being a director of that? A. That's a long story, but it is a good story because I was teaching four sections over organic chemistry and I could not remember the names of two thirds of them. I do not think that is a good thing to actually teach a person when you do not know their name or anything. So, I decided to actually just stop teaching for a while and that is when the position for Associate Director of the Pre-Health Office opened up. But as I was the Associate Director of the PreHealth Office, I was also the Program Director of Earle Hall, which is the Science and Health LLC.
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So that was the biggest change that I have ever had in my life because I went from actually just teaching, just basically an academic job, to Earle Hall where you had to plan parties and plan dinners. As the program director that was my job. And I did not know how to plan anything. I had to learn how to order food. I had to learn to do all the different things required. For example, if a toilet got stuck in the office part, I had to actually call. It was a really big learning curve. I also had responsibilities in the Pre-Health Office. Whatever Dr. Richard Sanker, Senior Director of the Office of Pre-Health, did not need to do, I was there to actually do it. That is how I ended up meeting all the students, helping with the committee interviews, and doing the presentations for students that are coming in. So, it was not that long, it was about a year into the job and Dr. Sanker comes in and hands me a proposal. He said, this is a proposal and we have been trying to pass it for a really long time. It is for the Science Research Fellows, but it has not passed, and we want you to actually fix it. So I fixed it. The first classes started in the Fall of 2017, so the program had been approved in the Spring of 2016. I had to start promoting and advertising, which is another thing I do not know how to do. After promoting and advertising, in the Fall of 2017, we had our first class of Science Research Fellows and the research fellows is a different type. It is a Bachelors in Science Research Fellows, but it is a little different from any other Bachelor’s degree because the students actually come with the idea that yes, I am going to be in a lab and after that I am going to go and have a research career. I am going to get a Ph.D., or I am going to get an M.D.-Ph.D. So that was the basic idea behind them, that we would help them get into a lab. I like to call it an informed decision, so that when they join a lab, they know exactly what they are getting into. They have done the research, the background search about what that lab is all about, and they are sure that that is where they want to be. But I do not stop right there, I keep after them.
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Have you thought about applying for these summer research programs? Have you thought about applying for a Fulbright? We have a lot of big national and international scholarships. Students should actually know that they should come to this office, which is now the Office of Engaged Learning, to look for those types of opportunities. We only take like ten students a year and right now, it is our third year. We have not graduated the students who are in the program yet. I am not going to say that it is a great program, but it is pretty good. It has been working well. I am in charge of the Research Fellows meaning Dr. [Richard] Sanker has been giving me more and more responsibility with the summer internships that the Pre-Health Office has. After a couple of years of doing that, then the Deans of the College of Arts and Science decided that since other Universities have an Office of Undergraduate Research, we should also have that. They decided that since I actually have the Research Fellows, took care of all the different internships, and at that time we had our first year of BTRUE (Baylor Transdisciplinary Research Undergraduate Experience) program as well, which Dr. Dwayne Simmons came up with it because he had done it before, they decided that I would be the person to actually take care of the Office of Undergraduate Research. Q. I understand that the Science Research Fellows program is really small right now with about 20 or 30 students… A. We have around twenty-seven students. We have lost some because they wanted to change majors. After the first year, they realized that they do not want to do research. That is a good thing, that you do not go into a lab and then just say, “Oh, I do not like this.” Q. What advice would you recommend for students of color who may be looking to get a master’s and/or a Ph.D. in research? What would you recommend to them, students here and students outside of Baylor, to look into whenever they MOSAIC 23
are looking into Science Research Fellows, and planning on applying for this major and getting all the benefits that it presents. A. To not be afraid to apply and to do it. In the application, we want you to write essays, short essays. You do not have to actually write a novel. But what I am looking for in the essay is to see that desire to do research and to keep going with your career. Even if a student does not get into the Science Research Fellows program, find a mentor. Find a mentor that you kind of connect with and that you feel comfortable with, because that person can help you figure out what you want to do. You guys are young. I know that you think that a lot, but there are so many things out there that students do not know, especially since you come from a high school, you do not know what we have at a University level. So see if you can find a mentor among the faculty that you feel comfortable with and that you actually are going to and talking with them frequently. It does not need to be every day, but maybe once a month. Just go in and talk about how your life is going and everything. If you do not find a mentor, come to me and I will be happy to help mentor students, because that is what I like to do. The best part about this job is that I still get to interact with the students. That was also a part that I learned a lot at Earle Hall, that being among students is kind of fun. It is different. So find a mentor and make sure that you ask as many questions as possible. Also do not just assume that it is difficult to do something. Just give it a try. Q. Now moving forward, I am aware that you have been a part of programs on Baylor’s campus that promote diversity and also promote equality between genders, especially in the fields of STEM. Can you tell me a little bit more about those, their names, and what they stand for and the things you're doing within those organizations?
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A. Of course! So once I was the Associate Director of the Pre-Health Office, since I was at Earle Hall, I felt a little isolated. Back then, this was 2013, there were not as many females as we have now. We have actually improved quite a lot. I thought that I would actually just start a brown bag lunch group where we would talk about what is happening in the different departments. We called it the Women in Science and Engineering group or W.I.S.E for short. So that was a faculty group and again, it was just simple. Once in a while, we invited the presidents. They came during that period that we had several proposals. It was a nice time of just camaraderie and just helping each other like, “oh, I have been through that. This is what you need to do.� So it was good. And then I was approached by two graduate students and they say, well, we want to take part of the women in science and engineering. We want to do that, but we want to do it a little different. We want to create the graduate student speaker series because we want to showcase the work that the female graduate students are doing. And that is easy to do. I mean, that requires reserving a room and advertising. And let me tell you, at that time, I was good at advertising. I learned at Earl Hall, so I was good at that. We started that, and we have been doing it for three years now. And every month during the academic year, we have a graduate student present. And it has been amazing. It has been really a great experience for them. And it is also a good experience for me because I just see them and they are so young, and they are so good at presenting and the science they do is impressive. Then, since I was at the Science and Health L.L.C., I wanted to start a student organization that was for science and health students. So I proposed that to two of my students and I do not know what happened. They decided that they were going to do AMWA, the American Medical Women's Association. We have women and they are going to be doctors, so we are just going to want them together. And that way we can actually just focus on topics that affect the women when they are going to medical school or any other health profession. MOSAIC 25
But if you do one for women, then you should do one for Latinos. So I was approached. This was not my idea. I was approached by two students and they said, we want to actually create a group for Latino pre-health students. And I will help because I think that is good. That way, again, the women face different problems than the Latinos. So we started the Latino Pre-Health Student Association, El Paso, and that has been growing and growing and growing and now we want to do it. Then another student approached me to another group. It was to be the start of a group that will focus on the problems of black students when they are starting as a pre-health and their future. I am backing that up because that is also needed. I know that maps are multicultural, but it has sometimes nice to just focus on a specific group and help them separately because again, the problems of Latinos are not the same problems of the Black students and they are not the same problems that just women go through. So that is how I am trying to work to help my diverse students. I do not know if it is working, but so far, I think it is. Q. For W.I.S.E, where can students and faculty find these monthly seminars? A. It is actually a seminar that we announce on the Facebook and Instagram of women in science and engineering. It is usually the last Tuesday of the month at 3:30 to 4:30 in C206. We have been in that same room for two years now and we always do it. We tried to announce it. Again, we are not advertising executives, but we try to. We emailed the faculty and we emailed the graduate students for that one. Q. Is there anything else you would like to add? A. I just wanted to add one more thing. If you are a first year pre health student. The classes are going to be harder. You just have to put a little more effort into it. I know that some other majors have more freedom and they can party more, but you are in this for the long game. So again, just make sure MOSAIC 26
that you learn your time management and that you get enough time to study and just a little bit of time for socializing and partying. But right now, your studies are the most important thing because you are actually just trying to get ready for life after Baylor. If you do not do a good job here, then we may not actually be able to send you to the next stop, but it is doable. You do not have to do this by yourself. There are people out there willing to help. If there is anything that I have learned, it is that pre-health students do not just want to help the sick, they help each other a lot too. They try to support each other as much as possible.
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Final Regards: Dr. Rizalia Klausmeyer Dr. K provides current and future students hope to begin seeing through the power of these words that the path to a successful start in research within bioscience is achievable here at Baylor and that the professors running these departments are people of color who are open to everyone. The Science Research Fellows is certainly a program that prospective students should look into if they are passionate about a career in methodical scientific research and working with a Principal Investigator in disciplines such as Neuroscience, Biology, and Chemistry to name a few. This program is also ideal for students who are looking to earn a Ph.D. in a particular area of scientific discipline.
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Anjali Ravee
Chattanooga, Tennessee Major: Biology B.S Minor: Sociology Pre-Medical Biology Ambassador Medical Mentor Hillis Scholar Baylor Alumnus Class of 2020
Q. What has your experience been like in academia as a minority? A. In the beginning, I think when I came into my freshman year at Baylor it was a bit challenging to find different avenues for help as a STEM major and as an Indian American at Baylor there are minority groups for my ethnic group on campus, but I didn’t feel like super involved in any sort of minority group right off the bat. I feel like as I got older and older throughout the process, I actively sought out ways to mentor younger minorities in order to help them not have the same feelings that I had coming into my freshman/sophomore year. I think I have always approached academia or mentoring from the stance that I want to help other people have a different experience from any of the negative ones that I have had. I am not saying I have had terrible experiences, but I will say it was challenging in the beginning to find the right resources that best suited me. I ultimately committed to MSO (Medical Student Association) and I loved my time in MSO. I became involved in leadership and then became president which was under the premise that I just wanted everyone to be passionate about the future of healthcare. Not so much solely MOSAIC 29
passionate about their grades, but more so passionate about making future patients feel like they have a home and are valued. Along with that, the feeling that they are being cared for by us as future physicians. That was more important to me more than anything. When I came in, I had no idea how I was going to accomplish anything but over time I found the right resources to help me achieve my goals. As a minority student, based on my ethnicity, the color of my skin, but also as a woman, I think it was super important for me to find the right people that would help mentor me. It was especially difficult in my opinion to find proper mentorship from a female professor that I really connected with. And until I met professors like Dr. Marcie Moehnke and Dr. Erika Abel, they both ended up becoming very close mentors of mine, especially Dr. Moehnke and Dr. Dean. They were all pivotal to my success at Baylor. Q. You had mentioned how you come into contact with some of these professors? A. Working in the department was a big plus but I think also just putting myself out there and going to different events that they sponsored or any of the seminars they put on for academic success. I went to them as a freshman and sophomore not necessarily needing it all the time, but I went with the purpose of networking and something that they do not teach you in high school especially if I do not know. As a minority student you are already at a disadvantage at a predominantly white institution like Baylor. I think we need to do better in promoting these different ideas like the academic magazine that you guys are doing. It's a good thing to help minority students have access to these different avenues that they may not be aware of. If there's any chance that you might meet someone really important at one of these networking events, you need to be there and in active attendance. You never know when it will lead to a job, connection, or opportunity.
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I remember the first day of Sophomore Year I went to some networking event for welcome week and it was like a Dr. Pepper Hour or some random thing like that and I ended up meeting my future Principle Investigator that I would later work with for the next few years, Dr. Pitts. He is a huge mentor of mine, I love him to bits, and had I never gone, it would have taken me a lot longer for me to find my place in that research lab. I am personally a pretty extroverted person, but I started off not being super out there and as a freshman. I was like a chicken without a head running around not knowing who to talk to. But when I committed to an organization, I found upperclassmen that I worked well with and they helped me so much they took me in as their little sister and like it was amazing what they did for me. They saw something within me that I did not see in myself at the time and it helped me take off at Baylor. I think as upperclassmen as well we need to do the same and pay it forward. So whenever I see freshmen that are putting in the effort, I automatically meet them halfway or oftentimes more than halfway because it takes them a little bit more push. I do it for everyone but when I see a struggling minority student in any category I always try to help them get to where they want to go because I know how hard it has been for me to find the right avenues for my own success. But every single year it gets harder and harder to get into med school so it is especially important that we offer any advice we can to younger students along the way. Q. What changes have you seen here at Baylor or what changes do you hope to see? A. I think as of late I've seen more minority students at Baylor more than ever and that puts a smile on my face because they are recruiting from so many different places and with that comes more diversity in thought and experience but also that kind of requires that Baylor changes as well to meet the demand for inclusion and understanding. MOSAIC 31
One thing that Baylor has done that is a great thing is the changes to the core curriculum including more cultural experiences. A lot of my freshmen have been telling me about that and are complaining about it but honestly I'd rather do that than four Lifetime Fitness’ and random foreign language requirements especially as a future healthcare provider you need to know how to work with people and understand different areas and like where people come from, so I think it's super important and a cool thing that Baylor is doing. Right now, I'm actually advising a student but they are requiring that students do distribution classes across their time at Baylor and they can be from any of the disciplines, any of the humanities, music appreciation, and then they also have to go to a set number of cultural experiences like theater performances, music performances, things like that. It is a good way to get involved in what is going on campus. If students actually engage in what they are going to. If you are just going to fulfill the credit, obviously you are not going to get much out of it. You are doing it for a reason, and I think it's a response to some of the criticisms that have been going on for the past couple of years at Baylor, but I think it's a good response and it's something that's necessary. I have seen it at other schools too where they require their students to go to certain events like this. I think it's bringing Baylor into a newer age, especially with us trying to move in to higher research program and more of a global health focus, more of a bringing our community aspect of Baylor to more universal scope, I think it's a good move for us. What that means for students is that you are getting a better education, a more well-rounded education, you are not just a STEM student, you are a STEM student who has a passion for music and maybe has found that they like theater now. When you are an adult, maybe you are a physician, maybe you're a pharmacist, or maybe you're a journalist, you'll understand different scopes of life that you experience because you went to these different things
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and I think that's a good thing. It is expanding your worldview also. You may come into college thinking one way because you've only been exposed to that, being socialized into that by your parents, your friends, the way you lived back home but Baylor’s a different place and I've definitely changed since I've been here and it's been for the better. Q. As a student at Baylor, what are some opportunities that pre health has been able to offer you that you feel has had an impact on your premed journey? A. Pre-Health, not just the office but the community has been pivotal to my success. I think early on I had to make a decision of where my place was going to be in Baylor's community, and ultimately, I found that it would be in mentoring and also research. Those two disciplines fit what I wanted to do in my future and the pre health office, at first, I had to go out of my way to create a relationship with them, but it's for good reason because they have so many pre-health students at Baylor so it's hard to filter who is here to really make it to med school and who is trying to find their way and what they want to do right now. Whether that be med school or otherwise, and so freshman year was me trying to establish my networking and mentoring relationships, do well in classes, but afterwards I started going after internships, mostly through the pre health office and then I got involved in different scholars programs both through the pre health office and beyond and through those scholars programs I was able to do more national internships and that all added to my ability to make different connections across the nation, not just in Texas. I am an out-ofstate student, that is another minority component. I believe what was the most helpful was the community and the upperclassmen here. I have been very blessed and lucky to have some amazing mentors that helped pave the way for me. They worked tirelessly to make sure that I got to where I wanted to be. In regard to the pre health program itself, I think like any other program at any school, it needs work, but we all came here for a reason the program is amazing. As a senior looking back, I am very well prepared for medical school.
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Granted I had to do a lot of soul searching along the way, and kind of work for myself a bit but with the track already in place and the people I met here and the experiences I've had here, I feel almost over prepared to go to med school in some ways. I think this place has really made it solidified in my brain that this is what I want to do and that is a super important thing for me to have discovered here at Baylor. As an out of state student, going back to that, I think with Baylor growing every year, they are going to get more and more out of state recruits/freshmen, and I think the program will have to meet that demand as well. It was quite challenging for me to get the proper mentoring that I needed as an out of state premed applying to medical schools, what that looks like exactly, but I think that just comes with the time. The pre-health office learns we all make mistakes, so over time the program will just get better and better. They are very responsive to feedback and I love the concept that if a group of students wants to do something like create an organization, they can. The pre-health office is pretty supportive of that. Now that I think about it, a new surgical organization started this year. Every couple of years or so, a new organization appears. Students come in every couple of years having a new outlook, a new drive to do something. If you are so willing, you are able to do it. It is awesome that we have these opportunities here. Baylor is large enough, so you do not know everyone every day, you don’t meet the same people every day, but still small enough that you make a community, you create your own community and make your own little pockets. And it is within those pockets that you actually thrive and succeed because you are making a lot of meaningful connections with your peers.
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Q. Are you a part of any organizations whose purpose is to help minorities or not necessarily? A. Not anymore, maybe freshman year I was more so because I was trying to find my place but now as a senior it is more so me trying to help other students through my own means. Q. How have any of the organizations that you are in helped you? A. So I spoke a little about MSO, I think you can extrapolate from that too. They basically filled me as a freshman and sophomore, and I went back and served as president sophomore through junior year because we are on an off year, so it is not a full school year. That was a whole tumultuous time serving as president as a sophomore but after that I realized MSO didn’t have an academics chapter so I made it my mission to create the academics chapter at MSO because I realized that all these different orgs are great but I think students tend to just stick with one after a while. Like in MAPS, if you find your home freshman year you stick with it, and if your organization is not accommodating for a couple different factors of pre health, some of those students, if they’re not a part of another organization might miss out so what I felt was that we needed more of an academic focus so I created that. So far, it has been okay, it needs some growth but that will come with time. Medical mentors has been one of my favorite things I have done at Baylor. I truly think that one of my purposes in the future is to mentor whether it be later on in my medical career helping younger medical students. I love doing it. I love giving back, serving, not just the community but also the people within your own branch, always learning from your peers and your mentees is a good thing, it helps the system overall. That is been a really awesome thing that I have been a part of. Putting on workshops, doing one on ones, I meet with freshmen throughout senior year. I meet with students probably once or twice
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a week at this point, both new and recurring freshmen that I have been mentoring that have been really rewarding. Also, in some of my other scholars’ programs, those have been super important for me to grow as an advocate for myself and my own science. Scholars programs like Hillis, and some of the other ones offered at Baylor, have allowed me to grow as a scientist but also an advocate for ethical research. How do we properly conduct research in a morally sound way? There's a lot of research being done in the world that’s not always up to par, and I've loved being at Baylor because it has given me this mission to always conduct yourself with grace and respect the people that are around you, that's what I want to bring in to my future, the clinic work that I do and the research that that I’ll I’llembark embarkon. on
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Final Regards: Anjali Ravee There are not enough words that can describe the level of accomplishment that Anjali has been able to obtain in her four years at Baylor. From the beginning, Anjali made it her mission to be as active as possible within the Baylor Sciences. She was clear and concise and wasted no time getting after her dream. Along the way she made connections with faculty and professors who have assisted her in elevating her platform as a Medical School applicant. Her steadfastness envelopes the intent that every Baylor pre-med applicant should have when they are truly passionate about the life of Medicine and bioscience.
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Colin Cummings
Houston, Texas Major: Biology Pre-Medical Reserve Officers’ Training Corps: Cadet Wing Executive Officer Senior Class of 2021
Q. Here is Colin Cummings a Biochemistry major, who at the time of this interview serves as a Cadet Wing Executive Officer for the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. Can you tell me about yourself? A. I am a junior Biochemistry major here at Baylor University. I am a POC within the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Core here at Baylor. I come from Houston, Texas. I have done a lot of things. I am also a pre-health student, hoping to go to med school, currently studying for the MCAT. Q. Thank you, so you mentioned you were in ROTC, could you elaborate on what ROTC means and what it stands for? A. Of course. ROTC itself stands for the Reserve Officer Training Core, and so specifically the mission of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Core is to develop leaders of character for tomorrow’s Air Force. So, as a freshman I came in and basically started learning all about Air Force history and heritage, the kinds of customs and courtesies that go along with becoming an officer. So, the MOSAIC 38
first two years you learn a lot about what it is like to be an airman in general. So, right after high school, we have the opportunity of enlisting, if you want to, but choosing to go to college and go through ROTC is the gateway to becoming an officer. So, right now in ROTC, I am currently the executive officer of our detachment at Baylor. Our mission is to both prepare freshmen who are just coming in to help them get acclimated with college and with it is like to be a ROTC student, and Baylor student at the same time. With the sophomores we are preparing them to be sent off to Maxwell Air force base in Alabama, to go through their field training. As soon as they finish their field training, they will come back and they will be in my position, which is the training area. They will be responsible for freshman and sophomore cadets themselves. Q. As a freshman coming into Baylor, you already seem to have had an idea that you are going to be a part of ROTC. Can you describe what it was like to get your feet wet within the program? A. Here is just a little background on why I chose Baylor. I originally applied to Baylor, the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, and University of Texas. The University of Texas, as a state school, did not have as many scholarship opportunities as I hoped for, and I was really going for the Air Force Academy. Just because I had decided in high school that I wanted to serve for at least four years, that was my original plan. I just knew that was something that I wanted to get my feet wet in, not necessarily just because I wanted to become a leader but because I wanted a structured path, just for as far as career and life goes. As a freshman, coming into ROTC at Baylor, I was somewhat surprised. My expectations were that it was going to be challenging of course, but I didn’t necessarily think about all the challenges that would be associated with just being a student at Baylor, in general, but I came in with a mindset that I was going to work my hardest and I knew that if I did well that the Air Force and the ROTC in general, will give me an opportunity to stay in college.
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I had my sights set on a few specific scholarship opportunities, specifically within the ROTC. One of those opportunities was called the Type 1 Commander scholarship. As a freshman, I decided that was going to be my aim within ROTC, not just as a pre-health, pre-med student, but I also knew that was kind of what I was shooting for, as far as ROTC was concerned. Deciding a major for pre-med was not too difficult because biochemistry was what the advisors at Baylor recommended because it covers a lot of the pre-health premed classes itself and it was also considered a technical major for the Air Force. The only difference in technical and non-technical majors for the Air Force is there's different kinds of scholarships associated. Some of the technical majors are usually the ones that get bigger scholarships not necessarily because they are more challenging but because it is what suits the needs of the Air Force. As a freshman taking freshman biology, chemistry and I even took Japanese too. That was my foreign language. It was definitely a challenge and I instantly realized that doing both pre-med and ROTC, was something that was going to take a lot of focus and a lot of grit so I did notice right off the bat that I was in a situation a lot different than my peers and it took a lot of self-control to not go and have as much fun. I hate to say it as some of the other freshmen coming into college for the first time. All of our first experiences in college so I knew I had to be just very focused but from my first experiences of waking up at 5:30 in the morning on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays to be at physical training, which in itself was not easy. It definitely got me used to just the intense training environment and what it is like to be in the Air Force in general. I definitely had a lot of people around me in hard classes that would, not necessarily be as positive and would complain about how hard life was or how much sleep they didn't get the night before and I do remember thinking “oh man if only you knew what it was like to have to wake up this early,� but over
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time it just kind of became what my life is about and it was less about “I wish that it was that easy for me,” and more of “this is how it is and it's my life and I'm going to make the most out of it,” that kind of thing and then from freshman year actually I achieved my goal of getting a scholarship by second semester freshman year. So after doing well academically things worked out and I joined a few pre-health organizations, specifically BURST, Baylor undergraduate research because personally I was really interested in research and in general and just kind of figuring out what that was all about. So, I think that answers that question. Q. Throughout your three years, but for a student who is in ROTC, from the jump. What will those four years look like? Starting from freshman year leading up to graduation A. That is a good question. As a freshman, you come in and your main goal is to be an information sponge of sorts so a lot of people aren't expected to have experience with the military, they're not expected to know like rank structure or the chain of command and basically we're just preparing you the same way that we treat basic Airman coming into the air force for the first time. For a freshman, your main goal is usually grades because if you cannot get good grades just as a freshman then you won't be able to stay in college usually if you fail and so that's kind of what we focus on. So for a freshman you are essentially getting mentored by upper-class ROTC Cadets who know what it can be like to take on those challenges and basically you take in as many of those points as you can figure out what kind of study habits work well for you and that's what freshman year looks like. Sophomore year is a little different because you have learned everything that you should know, as far as Air Force core values are concerned. Warrior knowledge is something that is big which is basically key points of information such as chain of command, all of the Air Force commanders, and the different Air Force bases around the world. Different kinds of drill movements are all MOSAIC 41
things that you learn freshmen year that you should be going into sophomore year ready to understand. With that, as a sophomore you become a mentor to the freshmen. When you're mentoring the freshmen, you're getting the opportunity to teach others and have that information hardened in your mind so you can go to field training that summer. This is where you have the opportunity to be evaluated on your leadership skills. Sophomore year the main goal is to figure out what kind of leadership style you are just personally acclimated towards, so you try to figure out what works well for you naturally. Whether that be like a mission oriented leadership style where you're constantly focused on the tasks that are given to you or whether you're more of a people oriented person where you focus on developing teams and just allaround encouraging people and getting people to do hard work for you. It really depends and there's a lot of different ways that people can lead but as a sophomore you try to figure that out so you can go to field training and use that and get evaluated to the best of your abilities. Then right after field training and you graduate, you immediately join the POC or the Professional Officer Course. In that you're learning more about what it's like to be an officer in the actual Air Force until you're learning about the responsibilities that come along with that being in the military and what kind of life changes you have to make and that also comes along with being in ROTC. They teach you to do things that you would be expected to do in active duty. For example, there are a lot of things around integrity, our core values are integrity first service before selfexcellence in all we do and so we very strictly teach Air Force Cadets and just people in ROTC in general that you got to have integrity in the things that you do outside of school. You cannot go and break the law have any kind of civil involved in since so, a lot of that comes down to just the way you live your life. It also comes down to being strong physically because you have got to be very
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focused on your body and taking care of yourself in order to get the mission complete. It is our responsibility to give up a few things that most college students would be used to. We do that to get you on active duty. As an upperclassman you are learning about the real world and how to become an officer and your main job is to teach those same things to the underclassmen. You have to be a stud at that point because you have to know what's going on and you don't get sick days because everyone as a underclassman is looking up to you and if you waver then they will definitely pick up on that. Often times what will happen is based on the type of POC that you have, that will determine the cadets that end up accomplishing more in their time. As a Senior, you have the highest leadership positions on the lines of organizational leadership. As a Junior, however, you are face to face with the underclassmen a lot and you have a lot of personal informal leadership. You got to know how each of those cadets are doing in their day-to-day activities, you have to make sure that they are doing okay in their classes or at least they're focusing their time (time measurements are a huge thing also). But as a senior you're focusing more on ROTC as an organization making sure that all of the objectives for training are getting hit and making sure that all announcements are getting done while focusing on the whole, rather than just each individual cadet. It becomes more responsibility while you are very close to be being commissioned as a Lieutenant. The classes that you are taking are more specific towards what life will be like in active duty deciding what career path you are going to go down. ROTC Cadets get their AFSC (American Friends Service Committee) numbers or their Air Force specialty codes which designates which career field they go into as an officer. It can range from Logistics to Health. With Health, you can go to medical school or nursing school afterwards. Other choices include Intelligence Officers, Security Forces, Special Forces and many more. So as a senior you are really packing your bags
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and getting ready to move forward as your career takes shape, making things pretty intense. Q. That is very, very interesting. So, for a person that is coming into Baylor, let us say they are looking to be pre-med, but they also want to do ROTC. When they apply, what are they looking to check off on the application box? Second question to go along with that, when they apply does ROTC assist them in paying for school as well? With financial aid of some kind? A. That is also a good question, and my answer is that as far as the checklist goes there’s a lot of things, and so no one thing is usually better than the other, but a few important things for high schoolers I would recommend would be some sort of physical activity. For me personally in high school I played soccer and I was on the varsity team my Junior and Senior year so I got a lot of good teamwork experience from that and also physical experience because both of those play into ROTC but also you want to make sure that you're ready for an academic challenge because it will definitely be there no matter what major you go into you. You are going to be spending a lot of time studying and you are going to be spending a lot of time just at that in general. As far as financial aid goes the ROTC does have scholarships, so as a high schooler you can apply for the HSSP, the high school scholarship program, through Air Force ROTC specifically. There are three other scholarships to each of the other branches in the military, specifically the Army I know for sure has a few scholarship opportunities for high schoolers but when you go to apply to that, you take a physical fitness test and they'll score you on that. And they'll basically determine how likely you are to do well in ROTC and so a lot of people don't know, they’ll base that off of your high school GPA your SAT, ACT scores so those are some things to focus on. They will probably ask you to do a few things such as writing essays. As students begin to gain medical checks, what may come up will include physical limitations either caused by childhood MOSAIC 44
ailments or something else that ends up being something that could potentially limit you in the field of military as an officer. They are looking for people that are both capable but also qualified to go into the Air Force because they are looking for fighters, they are looking for people that can do the job and they can do it well. So yes, as a high-schooler I would recommend focusing on a lot of those things. Q. Once you are in college, because obviously you need a certain GPA, certain SAT, or ACT score to get into specific tiers of schools. But once you are in college, you are in ROTC, what is the minimum GPA required to stay within the program? A. The minimum GPA to stay in the program I believe is a 2.0 and that information is all accessible on the Air Force ROTC website. In the Air Force ROTC the core values of, “Integrity first service before self” and “Excellence in all we do” along with another push cadets to try to exceed the standards. If a cadet is sitting at a 2.0 GPA, a lot of times the leadership in charge will kind of counsel that Cadet or that student in general and just ask, a) is this what you're cut out for, and b) are you up to these challenges. We are trying to make sure we have the best people because we are looking out for those people's best interest. Because you do not want to go through college suffering and get to a job or career that you really do not want to do. That can happen a lot of times because when you're going shooting for certain career fields it is competitive and so the career fields in the Air Force that a lot if you want to go to, pilot for instance is competitive and if you don't have a specific GPA or if you really don't have a good score on the pilot tests associated with that then you are less likely to get that job. You might get put somewhere where you really don’t want to be. There is no specific GPA other than a 2.0 to stay in ROTC but it is good to continually shoot to exceed that standard. That is what we encourage our Cadets to do.
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Q. As a member of ROTC, have you created interpersonal relationships with good people, close people that you know? And a sub-question to that is, do you know of people that have dropped ROTC because of the difficulty, or even had to even switch majors. If so, how often does that happen? A. As a freshmen I came in with a class of about forty Cadets in the Freshmen ROTC, now we are down to twelve Cadets. The weed-out process is a lot like what you would see in the pre-med weed out process at Baylor in that the numbers are lowered. But it's the same kind of weed out so we're like I don't know it's two thousand or so freshmen will come in with pre-med on their hand in applications but they will end up graduating Baylor and only about four hundred or so people actually continue down that route. It is near the same for ROTC just on a smaller scale. When I came in there probably about 10 pre-med people in ROTC and now there are only two of us. A lot of times, what I would see is people coming in from all different backgrounds. People leave and have to drop out for different reasons some people have financial difficulties where they are not getting their scholarships covered and then they are forced to leave. While also some people may have something happen within their families and their families might question if what they are doing is right. Then the individual themselves can also decide that they realize that they have other aspirations. So yes, changing majors does happen often. I know plenty of people who were in pre-health and ROTC at the same time and realize that both at the same time were too challenging for ROTC and so they would drop one or the other. I know one person who was pre-health, pre-med and then just dropped that in general and decided to go ROTC all the way, which is a perfectly good option. There are plenty of options and so there are also major changes within ROTC. You will have people that decide they want to go down a certain career field. Specifically some people choose something along the lines of intelligence
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versus piloting or vice versa just because certain career fields will need a different kind of experiences. I hear this a lot in Air Force. Let’s say you want to go into experimental research in the Air Force and the person who wants to do that might be an English major or they might be something more along the line of computer science. Baylor might not necessarily require them to take certain courses like Physics or Biophysical Chemistry. The Air Force will highly recommend stuff like that. But yes, there is indeed a weed-out process but in ROTC we are encouraged to look out for a wingman. Wingmanship is a huge deal to us and the specific Detachment Commander from two years ago stated that it is only worthwhile if you get through with people next you. There are a lot of different ways of looking at that but essentially can you focus on those around you and hold them accountable while trying to help them achieve their dreams because you should want to expect the same thing from them so they can help you do the things you want to do. That is the kind of the culture that goes along with Air Force ROTC at Baylor and I'm sure a lot of other detachments around the nation at different colleges. It is definitely a challenge and it's not for everyone but if you're the type of person who is looking for the opportunity to just give everything you got then I would highly recommend looking into it.
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Final Regards: Colin Cummings As a student officer there are many hurdles that Colin must work through to be successful within his field. The requirements of just a general member of ROTC alone are grueling especially coupled with the life of a pre-med student. And as he states, there are few members of Baylor ROTC that are still pre-med, yet, he finds a way to be successful by fostering strong relationships with his peers and seeking out assistance and advice always. Colin also makes sure that he has time to work on his hobbies as he is also the world’s youngest Air Hockey world champion which was recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2015.
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Dominique Johnson
Portland, Texas Major: Biology Minor: Child and Family Studies Pre-Medical Baylor Interdisciplinary Core Joint Admission Medical Program Ambassador Baylor Alumnus Class of 2019
Q. As a student at Baylor, what are some opportunities that Pre-Health has been able to offer you that you feel has had an impact on your Pre-Health journey? A. The Pre-Health Office has given a lot of information about scholarships and the different types of research opportunities and internships that you can do during the summer. At one point during the semester they sent out a list of all the summer internships that you can do that Baylor is affiliated with and although I have not done any of those, I know people who have and that has been really beneficial for them. For me specifically, Baylor introduced me to JAMP which has allowed me to get into medical school. So some of the things that they do is that they give out a lot of information and you just have to use it.
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Q. Are you a part of any organization whose purpose is to help minorities? A. I am a part of MAPS, the Multicultural Association of Pre-Health Students and their goal is geared towards multicultural students who have aspirations to be in a Pre-Health field. They bring in speakers and give little tidbits of information to the students and just have discussions about things that are medically related. They offer members opportunities to go to conferences that get students into the doors of the medical field or whatever [health field] that they want to get into. I am also in NAACP which is an organization that is for the betterment of colored people but in general, they really fight for equal rights for everyone. They are really the first people on the front line to advocate for anyone and I think that is very important being a minority student at a primarily white institution and so I am very happy and proud to be a part of that organization to fight for our rights on this campus. Q. Have these organizations done anything for you specifically? A. Both of these organizations have given me the opportunity to connect and meet with different people that I otherwise would not have been introduced to and so it has gotten me a lot of connections with professors and different people in the community which has been very helpful. I now know that there are people that I can go to and it has also helped me get my foot in the door of my career of being in the medical field. Q. Do you feel that you have created any healthy relationships with professors on the Pre-Health committee or just in the science departments in general? A. Yes, I have several really good relationships with multiple professors including Dr. Parizi. She is on the Pre-Health Committee and she teaches Anatomy for the Biology department. That relationship has really fostered over the last two semesters and I work for her now in her lab. Getting to know her MOSAIC 50
has been great, she wrote me letters of recommendation, she has been a mentor, she has been with me through the whole process of applying to medical school and has congratulated me getting through it. Also Dr. Schaub, he teaches Physics and he has been really instrumental by teaching me how to let go, just go with the flow, and rewire my brain to think differently. Those are some of my closest professor relationships. Also Ms. Haynes in the Pre-Health department has been very beneficial and has been someone who I can always talk to if I need anything. She has been my shoulder to cry on and my ear as someone who is in the sciences in an indirect way and can give advice regarding those classes. Q. What would you recommend to prospective students when it comes to fostering these types of relationships? A. Just to get out there and do it. If it is a professor and you like the way they lecture or you like their class, just go to their office hours and do not be afraid. Maybe even invite them to go for a cup of coffee. They are humans too and they are here to help us, but they cannot help you if they do not know that you need help. So you have to be willing to open your mouth and say what you need or what you want from them. That really is the best way to get to know your professors. They can also help you get recommendation letters in the future. Professors are more likely to write you a better and more specific recommendation letter when they know who you are, and they know more about you compared to if you just sit in their class. Even if you got an A in their class, it is better to have that communication and rapport with them. Just be open and willing to go to their office, sitting down and talking with them, whether it is about something discussed in lecture that was interesting or something that you did not understand. This opens that doorway for communication which gives you the opportunity to maintain that connection.�
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Q. What changes have you seen on Baylor’s campus since you have been here? A. I believe Baylor has become more open to hearing feedback from students, especially students of a minority background. It is not always easy to have our voices heard when we are at an institution that is predominantly white and so I think that is something that has changed. Baylor is now more open to sitting down with members from different communities like with “Neighbor Nights” where you can go to the Bobo and meet different people. Baylor also has different activities where you can come, and they are wanting to hear your feedback and so I think that is something that is very beneficial and has been shaped since I started at Baylor in 2016. I am very happy to see that change and I think that they can do more in the sense that they could start adding multicultural students to panels so that they can represent minority groups during those discussions with regents and speak for us. This would let us have representation in the moment rather than after the fact and so I think that is something that Baylor can work on implementing in the upcoming years.” Q. What has your experience been like in academia as a minority? A. Overall, I have had a good experience. I have had a pleasant time and have made a lot of good friends and relationships with professors who have helped me get through the last couple of years at Baylor. There have been times when it has been hard being a minority, especially when you are the only one in the class and you feel like you are being looked over and do not belong in that space. So having that close connection with my friends and some of my professors has really helped to eliminate that feeling of being invisible. I think that most of my experience has been pleasant but for the times that were not, I always had people that I could reach out to whether it was MOSAIC 52
people in NAACP or people in the science building. They were always there to back me and help me do what I needed to do so that I could have a better experience. So I am thankful that I had those people in my corner no matter what.
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Finals Regards: Dominique Johnson Dominique is an ambassador for the Joint Admission Medical Program which is a program designed for college students who have completed one year of undergrad and are passionate about a future in medicine. The program aids and supports qualified Texas resident students pursuing medical education but are also economically disadvantaged. The program allows for placement into summer internships and clinical opportunities as well as a stipend to help pay for school. It also includes mentoring, scholarship to attend medical school, and comprehensive, multiphase MCAT preparation programs to ensure that if accepted into the program and prove that this career is your passion, that you are qualified to attend the Texas medical school that TMDAS matches you too. Applications open May 1st and close October 1st each school year and are available for 1st semester Sophomores.
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Michael Rankins
Birmingham, Alabama Major: Biology Minor: Public Health Pre-Medical Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. President Student Government Deputy Co-Chair Student GovernmentAssociation AssociationHealth Healthy Deputy Co-Chair
NAACP Healthcare Chair Bill Gates Millennium Scholar Baylor Alumnus Class of 2020
Q. I am here with Michael Rankins, a senior here at Baylor University graduating this spring of the year of 2020. A. Yes, thank you for having me. Q. Michael can you tell me a bit about yourself as a student, your overall experience with Baylor, and some things that you do on campus. A. Yes, my name is Michael Rankins and I am from Birmingham Alabama, graduated from a little high school in a little town called Leeds High school that is Charles Barkley’s alma mater. I got to Baylor in the fall of 2016, I have always been a Biology major, and I grew up on science and a lot of reading so that was one of my interests. When I first got here, I initially joined the choir, which was one of the first things that I really wanted to join. The gospel choir because it reminded me of the closest thing I knew to home because I grew up in the choir and so that was one things that I found myself to clinging to and MOSAIC 55
then of course as I went on I found out about NAACP and I was able to join there my spring semester of freshmen year as a general member. And then of course the typical male thing to do everyone hears about M.I.S.T.E.R and till you get a part of that and so I was able to participate a couple of times. Q. Can you explain what M.I.S.T.E.R stands for and means. A. M.I.S.T.E.R as a group stands for basically a group of males on the college campus known as the Males Inspiring Success Through Education and Relationships. It is pretty much a safe haven for those males to talk about what they experience, what they go through day to day here. As a student and just in the world men do go through things as any gender does, male, female or any other you may identify as. Everyone goes through something and so it's always good to have those safe spaces for those people so that’s pretty much what M.I.S.T.E.R is for us here on campus. Q. And you were explaining about the NAACP? A. Yes so, I got really involved here with the NAACP pretty much moving into sophomore year. I joined Alpha, which is also bonded to the NAACP with them both being the oldest organizations pretty much in black culture and history. Through all those things I was able to put on different events, go to different events, have experiences that were not typical college experiences. You are sitting there watching the election of president Donald Trump, you are also sitting there watching the sitting duck era of President Barack Obama to be the first black president ever elected, and then reelected. So it’s a time when you’re probably doing things in college that you would have never thought of, and that was what was so big about 2016 and just coming to college and so I was able to join those things like Alpha and then I got into being a senator and all of these different experiences were just, you wouldn’t have thought you would have had those, just coming to college. That’s the journey I’ve been on. Just navigating through those waters, those different types of people, those different MOSAIC 56
types of experiences, those different types of life’s meaningful moments, and partnering with all types of people. That’s one big thing I’m working on now is just the partnerships and the connections that I make to push forward basically my purpose and what I’m doing next. Q. You mentioned that you came in as a freshman in 2016, did the election have a big impact on you especially your experience being a student here and did you notice anything change and effects to other minority students because of the election and what was going on in the country at the time? A. Any election is going to make the country go a little bit haywire, whether it be from stocks, or the gas station down the street. I would say as far as on campus, you definitely noticed that the election was going on, you definitely noticed that whatever side or belief you had you knew that there was a sense of tension, there was a sense of, not necessarily a sense of division, but a sense of that it wasn’t connected, it was quite united as it states, United States. And so just on a basic level, you saw that in the past. Now as far as specific people, I look at it this way, so it is not even framed a certain way, every race, every minority, every majority was affected so let us start there. So that everyone understands that everyone was affected regardless if you are happy, regardless if you are sad, everyone was affected. Of course, there were those who were marginalized and kind of set to the side through different things of whether the facts were there or not, and it may have affected them negatively. It may have felt like that time was definitely not for them and there have been a couple of instances where on campus, and really just anywhere you could just see that there was clear division and not support and not making someone feel like they’re a citizen of the United States. So then you always have the other side of people who are also affected in a positive way, where the economy’s doing well, and jobs are starting to pop up. You have experiences and effects that are always going to be good and bad.
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2016 did seem like a time where the majority of the experiences were bad, but I think on a larger scale it is much more minute and much easier to overcome than what we are looking at. And I think people are just missing that. So to sum up 2016, it was a lot. It definitely affected the experience, just worried about if I go to class how I feel, if I see someone who may have supported something opposite of me do, I belong at this school. I am a freshman and I am going to this campus where I’m a minority, am I going to be okay? So yes it also affected people, it affected me in that way. But that’s just life honestly. To sum it up, that is pretty much what living in the United States was. You can basically say living at Baylor was like living in the United States during the time of everything in 2016. Q. Did you feel as though you noticed anything different within pre-health itself? Well then again, you were a freshman, so did you feel any adverse reaction within pre-med itself and also did you notice other minority-based groups doing things to kind of counteract misconceptions or incorrect actions happening on campus. Did you notice any of the larger, overhead groups, doing things differently because of it? A. I definitely would say just in general being in pre-med or pre-health there is always going to be a time where the minority pretty much feels like they don’t deserve to be in the room or aren’t like the people that are in the room. I can definitely say just during the time, really any time, you can tell that there is a sense of, on one side am I supposed to be here, and on the other side, wow are they supposed to be here, I haven’t seen many like you let me see more, if that makes sense. You always feel that, and you always wonder if you are supposed to be here. Is this what I am doing because I love too and honestly moving from that with the organizations still, it may feel like, “okay I am going to this event and I am doing this, but do they really want me here”? Do I really have a chance to use this platform to move forward? That’s one thing with MAPS (Multicultural Association of Pre-Health Students) and really any organization
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you get a sense of grounding, and it gets a little weird when the room get even less familiar, and so that is one thing I do like about being in a group like MAPS or NAACP, you get to feel like you belong, and that is something that you definitely don’t get every day in the world of pre-health. Q. Thank you. So going forward freshman year into sophomore year and getting leadership positions in these organizations. What work have you done as a student to promote and include the rest of your minority counterparts within the intricacies of Baylor? A. Pretty much in everything I do when it comes to programming for Alphas or Heavenly Voices, NAACP, I always like to market and target minority areas and support. A lot of times as I say you have to fill these places and spaces that you are able to go into like student government, like senate, and you have to put in the people or perspectives that seem to be missing. Not to say that what is going on is not good but who’s to say what the people that I’m bringing in can't add. And so that is one thing that I am really making sure I stay strong. With the mental health planning for student government is having these people who for one time have a different mindset and not to say the people who did it before me didn’t have the best mindset, it’s just now from a perspective or lens of a student who’s a minority or even a student in the majority, using that sense of collaboration to make better what’s already been done. Even with the NAACP where I have a mental health panel session. Where I have a panel of 8 students of all different minorities and you have crowd who’s either fully one minority or fully diverse, but regardless that sense of collaboration, that sense of at least a single transfer is able to maybe ignite the light of understanding to transcend across all races and all majorities and minorities. I constantly advocate making sure you remember those who are forgotten whether it be Asian or Indian community. And that’s one thing that people have to remember, when you are marketing these events, when you are putting MOSAIC 59
on programs, when your hiring these people you have to have diversity because no one perspective will ever get you where you need to be and so that’s one thing I love to keep in mind and when it comes to Alpha, partnering organization, partnering with people who may be in a whole different realm than Alpha, but still that sense of collaboration allows us to be better than what we were before we made that connection. And so I pretty much just live by that. I am an advocate for the job that can be done by just one person, it's always better with two, three, four, five, and so on. And so I live by that and make that a mission of mine to give these people the platforms that they deserve to make us all better people. Q. Can you also detail some events that you have personally been in charge of? I heard you mention Mental Health week, which from what I know you are the deputy health policy chair for student government, so would you talk about that as well as other events and organizations you help put on that have promoted minority inclusion. A. Yes, so I have assembled a Mental Health Panel session where different people come and they talked about what mental health meant to them, how they have been affected, and their experiences. You had audience and crowd participation. I have also put on HIV/AIDS awareness seminar where students specifically, minority students were able to come in and get free testing, food, and conversation around healthy living and healthy lifestyles, whether it be sex or just living in general. Understanding and knowing their precautions and how they should move about living. I’ve also put on a part of my mental health week, a spiritual day where we had a choir, we had a sermon, we had a praise dance, just a time for people to come in and clear a space in their head, and get really mentally and spiritually in a space for them to be active and happy where they are and love them where they are. I have also put on a program for an event titled “Brown boys have feelings too” where its mentoring for the youth in Waco, specifically for brown males in middle school. It is basically a
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mentorship between the students of Baylor and those students in Waco. And just have a time talk about self-awareness of how they can have feelings to with the things they go through on a level of middle school, because those students in middle school are going through things now just from the 2016 change and really any presidential change really, as we’ve now moved into 2020, 2010, 2015 and so on, we’ve evolved and those conversations need to be had. And that is pretty much the purpose of that program. And so pretty much just all types of events like that have been able to bring awareness for minority students, minority people and just also for everyone to kind of get on the same page, to work actively together. Q. Over the last four years of your college career, has there ever been a point in time where you felt as though you were at a disadvantage in relation to your peers? If so, how did you eclipse that disadvantage? A. Yes, so I would say I definitely felt like that in my junior year. It was the fall semester of 2019 and I was taking Honors Biochemistry, and I was sitting in class one day, it was after the first test, which of course was rough for everyone. So we were sitting there and of course it was a time where I felt like I had gotten my groove and understood everything and we go into the study session right before the test and I’m listening to my partners and they go down the list and we popcorn who teaches each section and so everyone had gone through theirs and we had got to mine and my questions were answered a little bit slower. I didn’t know more than the other people, I wasn’t quite getting all the concepts right, thoroughly. I stopped and thought wow this is kind of a first-time thing, and it made me think about where I have come from. I remember talking with my parents who I was studying with and them talking about taking AP classes, the programs their parents put them in, and all types of experiences from their public high schools, predominately white, programs which I had never heard of. And coming from a predominantly black school you realize that there are opportunities and experiences that you were MOSAIC 61
not getting and while they might not be that huge at that time, it comes up. And that is just to say that pretty much every student that I would sit myself besides, whether they be medical students, pre-med students here at Baylor, the biggest gap between myself and them would be the incoming of credits from high school. I had a total of 3, pretty much the average of my incoming college class was 27 or 30, which is a lot, and so that just shows you that yeah, I probably am at a disadvantage and a lot of people like me. For me to be so fortunate to be a Gates Scholar and for me to have the opportunities that my parents provided me, to think that there’s someone who doesn’t even have the half and they have to go up and compete against these different students who come from all of these different places and know that’s not that student’s fault either because they were able to be blessed by God to be allotted by those experiences. It's just not necessarily shame but it just kind of for lack of better words, sucks for those who don’t get to have those experiences because they have to go through the time period as I did to realize that they actually could do what they did and that they did deserve to be there and that everything that they were experiencing was for the betterment of them whether it was good or bad. It took me just sitting down and realizing that I had made it this far. I was a black male past the age of 21 on track to be a doctor and that is not a headline that makes the news every day. So realizing that looking at all the people who I realize probably will never get this chance, I have to be the one chance they get because that is one more person that is on the other side. And so that really what got me over that and really open my entire perspective moving forward on how I am as a student, how I am as a person, the energy that I keep because it's really important to realize that it's not just about you it is about people who come after you, people who come before you and it's just really important to keep that in your mind that’s pretty much how I overcame that feeling of being not as equipped not as able as my counterparts.
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Q. It is to my understanding that now that you have finished college, you have gained the opportunity to earn an MPH (master’s in public health) from the University of Southern California, between that and going to medical school. Can you describe the process that you took when you applied to medical school as well as these master’s programs and can you give your perspective on the matriculation process of going directly into medical school instead of taking an alternate route. A. For the masters programs you have to take the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) which is the required test to get into any graduate program and then they have a program for public health, it’s a website, where you can pretty much just go in pick the schools, pick the programs that you want, and you have a check off list and you just check it off and that’s pretty much that and you do eventually get an interview. You have to go out to the school and you can tour it and interview for it and as long as your test scores, and transcripts, and recommendations are solid then that’s pretty much it and kind of similar to the MCAT (Medical College Admissions Test), but two different test. You take the MCAT to try to matriculate into Med School. The medical schools have a website called AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) where you can pretty much just put in which schools, which programs you want. Send in your transcripts, letters of recommendations, essays and they will all go to each school individually and then you wait on your interview as well, a pretty standard process. And then what was the second part to it? Q. What was your perspective on matriculation versus. alternate routes, along the lines of, let us say, your master’s program, which you were accepted into. A. It really is important to do what works for you and if that means you need to go straight to medical school then that is possible, you just have to work for that. If you think you need a break from school, then that is also okay. Just realize there’s work to do in that as well. Going straight to medical school is not MOSAIC 63
meant for everybody. And really the biggest thing is if you do not want to go that is fine. The biggest question is what do you want to do? As long as there's purpose, action, and active thinking behind what it is you want to do you can take as much time as you want. You have medical students that start at 50. The time in between, it's not the time that’s the issue, it's what you’re doing that’s the issue and so for some people who maybe like school but can't get into medical school or don’t want to go right now they need a little more experience. Masters programs and post-bachelor programs are always good for that to kind of keep that centered concentration on academia, but still not being directly into medical school. Even the working route is a good way, because a lot of medical schools like people who go out into the workforce at the lower, not lower jobs as far as people, but the start off jobs within health care, whether it be receptionist, PT, PA, they like to see their students go through these levels and ranks because it only gives you more wisdom to be the better physician, better surgeon that you can be, you get that experience. And so really, it's just like I said, what you make of the time, so if you want to go straight like a lot of people want to go, then go ahead. I think it is really just what works for you. Honestly, for me I have the ability to get a master program for free and so if that’s what works for me the most then that's what we’re going to do and if I get into a school that I like, then I’m going to take that and I’m going to go with it and we’ll talk about crossing our T’s later, as long as our I’s are dotted. So it's whatever works honestly and just go with whatever is best for you because that’s what is important in the end and that’s what’s going to be there when you're tired and nobody else is around, so that’s always important to know. Q. Final question, with students looking to apply to Baylor for its outstanding pre-health program, what is something within pre-health that only Baylor has that they have been able to provide you, that you would not have been able to find anywhere else?
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A. I would say without a doubt, that this would be the mission trip within the pre-health department. And it is really interesting because when you think of mission trips, you think of going and serving, which is what you’re doing but being able to go into a city within a country like Pignon, Haiti and really see their everyday lifestyle, their everyday living. You would not have been able to get that experience anywhere else. To be able to go into a hospital, one of the only two working hospitals in the country and redesigning, restructure an entire way that their laboratory and their tools that they use to operate everyday are set up is really life changing because you realize that you are doing something so minute that if you went back home it would be done in the snap of a finger. You doing something that is saving the lives of many people that probably were supposed to not have made it before you got there and that’s just something that you are not able to do at many other schools because people don’t have the trust, connection, that sense of service everywhere. That is something you can see that is evident through Baylor, that that is one of their missions to be a God serving, God, fearing community, a Christian community. So being able to go there and then turn around and drive down the road to seven schools, where you are able to stock the schools with a year's worth of food, when they were sitting there looking at three months left of having food and you just stocked them for a year. That is an experience you do not get to do anywhere else but Baylor, that is a Baylor experience. That is what Baylor represents and that is one thing to take note. There is always negativity everywhere but the positive does not ever really get the shine and so you have to remember that when you have these different conversations and debates on whether you should go anywhere, what people are saying. You really have to sit down and think about are the people at this university really standing for what they believe in. Just being able to do those things and see the smiles on these kid’s faces, but knowing when they MOSAIC 65
leave us, they go home to nothing, like the entire street does not have lights. We have lights because we are here and we pay money to stay at the hospital, but right outside the hospital, the next person does not have light. So being able to really go and learn and see from a different lens. You do not get to do that anywhere else. That is a Baylor experience that definitely cannot be bought or made; it has to be simply sent from God and I think Baylor is a university that is sent from God with its flaws and all. And so that is pretty much my pre-health Baylor experience that I would say is by far by none, the best.
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Final Regards: Michael Rankins A massive thank you to Michael for this fantastic interview. His message revealed that great work has been done on campus by himself in his four years that he spent at Baylor and also proved there is still great work to be done. He recognized early that passion about one’s motivations while also being successful in academics are both a possibility. He has consistently stood by the notion that if students were driven enough, they can leave large lasting footprints here at Baylor University while carrying the torch and then eventually passing that torch to the next generation’s set of student leadership.
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Veronica Prince
Atlanta, Georgia Major: Medical Humanities Minor: Biology Pre-Medical Baylor Interdisciplinary Core Honors College Multicultural Association of Pre-Health Students President Student Health Advisory Council President Student Government Deputy Co-Chair Student GovernmentAssociation AssociationHealth Health Deputy
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. Baylor Alumnus Class of 2020
Q. Now that you have reached your senior year. Can you reflect on yourself and the growth you have seen within you that has emerged since the start of your pre-health journey? A. Reflecting back, the biggest thing that I can say in relation to my personal growth and my growth as a pre-health student was just understanding the power of perseverance early on. The pre-health program at Baylor is notoriously difficult and potentially weeding out students so you see a lot of kids dropping your freshman and sophomore year and you begin to question yourself and your own capabilities. However, as I got through each year, I realized importance of perseverance and the fact of just getting connected with upperclassmen and getting involved with organizations that will encourage you and speak life into you, but also doing your part as a student to make sure that you are not one of the people that drops out and that you continue to MOSAIC 68
progress towards your goals. So that is really what carried me from the time I set foot on campus to basically the time that I'm approaching now where it's time to get my degree Q. Thank you. So as a freshman, when you came into Baylor, what were your initial reactions and experiences with becoming a student here at this university? A. When I first got into Baylor and enrolled in everything, I did that without ever stepping foot on campus. That is not something that I advise and that is not something that is common. So when I got here, I was just open to everything. I try not to allow myself to be taken into the negative mindset or, oh, find things that I did not like about this or that. My thought process, I have already committed and I'm going to be here for years. So I first, like you, get taken aback by the campus's beauty because it is a beautiful campus. But as classes started, I was like, wow, I am really in college. And this school is actually a little difficult and it is more difficult when you are a minority student. And I learned that out the back. But that just encouraged me to get connected with other minority students and other African American students on campus just to create a home away from home. Q. And with that, how has the pre-health office assisted you in expanding your capabilities as a pre-health student? A. So the pre-health office has a unique role on campus. It has a bunch of resources and opportunities that it sends out to students. And they hold these things called like ask pre-health sessions where you can go in and ask them any question you want. And even if you want a calculator like a GPA or BCPM GPA. and you do not know what that is, they will literally work with you wherever you are and help you get to where you are trying to go. That being said, if you are one of the students, who is let’s say, "too far gone", you might want to go to the pre-health office, but also like look in different ways of getting MOSAIC 69
resources because they probably won't be able to help you at that point and they will be very open about that. But that does not mean that your road to medicine is impossible, anything like that at all. They have Ask pre-health sessions. They have this group of medical mentors that they sponsor that hold sessions on med-school applications and MCAT just everything. Letters of recommendation, personal statements. So they are a great asset to the prehealth community here, in my opinion. Q. Can you personally describe how you've used your resources and networking to get plugged in, per say, into different avenues of health around Baylor, such as the different organizations you are a part of and the different opportunities that have been presented to you? A. Yeah. So I knew that when I came to college, wherever it would be, that I would want to leave it better than I found it in a way. And so in order to do that, from the moment I got here to the time now where I am about to leave, I have joined numerous organizations and I guess I will start on that list. I currently serve as the president of MAPS, which is the Multicultural Association of Pre-Health Students, the organization that is sponsoring and publishing this beautiful, Mosaic magazine. I am also the president of SHAC Student Health Advisory Council on Baylor's campus. And basically, we are a small council of university students who help advise the health clinic staff, as well as the counseling center and BARC (Beauchamp Addiction Recovery Center), which is our addiction recovery center on campus and just things of that nature. I am also a Devastating Diva of the Rho Eta chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. I am a Teaching Assistant for Human Physiology Lab up here for about a year and a half now. I am in SGA, which is the Student Government Association as the Deputy Director of Health, a role that I split with a colleague. I served as a C.L (Community Leader) for two years as well. I served as a NCAA academic mentor. I currently teach in Waco ISD. Freshman year I worked in Waco Hall MOSAIC 70
as an Usher. That is a great experience for anybody who just wants to be more personable. And recently I took on a job as a medical scribe at Providence. And as far as research I have been involved and Dr. Tomball's Leap Lab and the Sleep Cognition and Neuroscience Lab here, Baylor, where I've gone to run a couple of independent research and present those during URS Scholar Week. But the initial question was how have I used those resources to help me? All of those resources are great in and of themselves with opportunities that they present in addition to being added on like a medical school application. However, they each were able to put me in situations where I had to step outside of my comfort zone and think on my toes and interact with all types of people and represent a whole body of students as one person. So it really helped me as a leader, but also as a student understanding and having to hear students' stories and then convey that in the most appropriate way to the higher ups. Q. That is amazing. So with that, can you give me some insight into your day to day life, seeing as you were, you would be extremely busy having to shoulder so much responsibility in these different avenues. A. Yes. My day life is, I wouldn't say hectic - and this is something that I give to everybody - the sooner you understand the importance of time management to your life, the sooner you will be able to enjoy everything that it is that you want from your college experience. So my day to day life starts. I try to wake up. No later than 7:45 to go to work. And then I go to class and my days are done by 3:15. So it's not too bad. And then after that is where my extracurriculars come into play, whether that step practice or MAPS meetings or Executive Board meetings or conference calls or whatever it may be. But whatever it is, I know that I will be in my house and in my bed no later than 12:00 in the morning. Those are just kind of my hard-set things. And if I cannot make it fit into those hours or that MOSAIC 71
schedule, then maybe I shouldn't be doing it because then I can't give 100 percent of myself, which would be a disservice to whoever is asking for my participation. So it's really about balance and understanding your limits, but also your passions and making everything fit any unique way that benefits you and your schedule. Q. Is there anyone whether a former student or mentor who had a significant impact on you that you would like to celebrate and/or speak on? A. Yes. So in relation to medicine, the students who have been a beacon of light to me have been. Stephanie Nwagwu, the former, well, three times removed past president of MAPS. And then our Arham Siddiqi, who is the previous president of MAPS. Both of them have helped me on both ends of my college career as a freshman. Stephanie was the president of MAPS and seeing her command room or present or talk was really inspiring to me. And it was in that first general meeting I was thinking, “you know what, I am going to become her. I do not know how I am going to get there, but I will be president of this organization and I will get into medical school.� I can do it because she can do it. And she looks like me. And then on the tail end of my undergraduate career, we have our home, who has been a phenomenal asset to a lot of my accomplishments here and who has been understanding and flexible with me. In 2019 I served as the vice president [of MAPS] and in MAPS we have to plan an entire trip. And my year we had 27 students flying of which I was responsible for getting them there and back. However, I also decided to undertake sorority life and that was also very time consuming. And he was completely understandable that I am flexible with me and that he continued to encourage me throughout that. And also as I was wanting to be president of MAPS. Even after he graduated, he is currently in medical school. He has proofread my entire application. We have sent a minimum of 30 edits of my personal statement back and forth, like he is the
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embodiment of what I envision MAPS to be in the future, just a constant progression of giving back to where you started from. So those two students have definitely assisted me greatly in relation to medicine, in relation to his everyday life. I have to shout out my sorority sisters and also countless young men and women who restore faith for me in knowing that while when I leave Baylor is still going to be represented and the plights of minority students will still be advocated for. And there are so many people who are too zealous for change and advocacy and all those great things. Q. You stated that you had Arham assist you in your med school application process. Can you give us further insight into how all that came about? A. Yes. When you are about a junior, I will say you will take your MCAT. You can definitely take it before then. Totally up to you. But about junior year, your coursework will have prepared you to take the MCAT and you will be more mature, which is needed when you sit for that eight-hour test. But after that, you apply to medical schools that summer, the summer of your junior year. And in that, there is like a personal statement in which you write about. There is an activities section and just it is a lot. But you can definitely do it with the help of a tribe that is going to look like what you need it to look like. For me, that is the schedule that I followed. I took my MCAT in my junior year. That summer I applied. And now as a senior is where you are hearing back with interviews or acceptances or deferments or whatever they may be. And that is also not the generic path to medicine. So do not get discouraged if that is not your path to medicine. There are a lot of people on my board currently that are taking gap years or one singular year or doing research and going, all of that. And honestly, the average starting age of med school classes ranges from 25 to 27. So do not feel discouraged at all. If you need to do a postbaccalaureate program or do more research or shadow whatever maybe, rest in
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that. As long as you are taking your MCAT and work on the application, you are absolutely fine. Q. How are you using your platform to now help students who are still in the application process and who are looking to network and to become as plugged in as you are? A. I use my platform in a variety of ways. I feel like accolades mean nothing if they are just for you. If you are just using them as an asset for your own advancement. I am a strong believer in that. That is why on every board that I serve on and everybody that I sit under, I make sure that each conversation we have is about progression, not only of the organization, but of the people within it. Because what good does it do to leave something better than you found just for it to die off? You need to be building up leaders. You need to be encouraging, your member body and you need to be walking the walk for lack of a better phrase. The way that I do that is I am very open. I have an open door, open phone, open house policy with everyone that I work with because I feel like things begin to break down when people feel unheard. With that, I make sure that everybody that I come into contact with, especially those that I work with professionally in the E-Board setting, are able to contact me and to reach me and feel heard and valued. And that's the biggest thing that I have come across that has ensured success, because as much knowledge as you have in a room or as much money you have in a room, if nobody feels heard, then you're not going to get anywhere. So that is just what I live by and try to model myself after. But also in the progression since, I am purposeful and training up leaders. So when I got in these positions, I knew, ok, come May 2020, I am going to be gone. Who can I identify, who can I pass the golden scepter and things of that nature? So it is always about being conscious and mindful of where you are going and where you want your impact to last.
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Q. As ingratiated as you become at this university, how do you do it? How do you find time to relieve stress? You find time to be just a normal regular student. A. So that is where that balance comes in. You have to invest in yourself. For me as an undergrad, before I knew people it was, going home, watching TV just in my room, relaxing and flying home, hanging out with family and things of that nature. Now that I'm older and know more people, and more involved on campus it is hanging out with my line sisters or going to the movies with my boyfriend or talking to some of my mentees and just asking how they're doing, hosting an event at the house. It is really the little things. Everybody does not need an international trip to unwind. If that is you, then that is totally fine. But it has at the end of the day it is about investing in yourself because success is great, but it can also be harmful if you are not pouring back into yourself to make sure that your cup does not run dry. That is how I do it and how I remain normal and not stressed out or stretched thin or anything about that. I invest in myself and I take it seriously. Q. Are there any professors with which you have formed positive relationships that you would like to also highlight? A. Dr. Dena Quigley, she is the lab instructor that I work for. She is super great. Even if you are not trying to get into medical school or you don't want to be near a lab after you finish physics lab. It is totally ok. She is just a great person to talk to. She will write you a letter of recommendation. She will listen to you. She will have you like go on vacation if you need it. She is just super understanding. Aside from her, there's this master’s student who is a soon-tobe Ph.D. student. Her name is Jasmine Stovall. She is a great resource as well. Just if you want to hear from a student who is doing the things and who is focused and motivated and is willing to motivate other people and help them get focused as well. As far as just regular staff and faculty on campus, I would
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highly suggest people get connected to Dr. Beverly in Multicultural Affairs. She is a great listening ear, but she has a great wealth of knowledge and resources. There's Ms. Terica Hudson and Campus Living and Learning who will always listen to you and get you connected to the powers that be on campus to meet the needs that you have. In the science community, there's Dr. Erica Abel, she is super sweet. There's Dr. Zinke, also super sweet. The only caveat that I will give is that they come to them prepared. If you are a D- student who is not taking their class or any class seriously, I highly advise you not to approach them, because at the end of the day, science is a field, we're here to learn and they are here to partner with students who are willing to learn and who are willing to push through their struggles and challenges and take things seriously. Aside from them, honestly, the list could go on, but I am leaving it at those gems. Q. Any other tidbits, any other pieces of advice you would like to convey to students who will be looking to apply to Baylor and particularly into prehealth, some kind of science major or non-science majors who are also prehealth? What would you give them? What kind of advice would you give? A. First and foremost, I would say join MAPS. And I say that as the former president. But I say that as a president who four years ago was a general body member, the organization is large, but there was not once where I didn't feel seen and that I wasn't heard in every general meeting and every outreach and every service project really spoke to me, not even as a student, but as a minority and as a female, as an aspiring physician, as someone interested in health care. They do not know how they do it. And I should because I am the president. But there's something about us in the team that we have that makes sure that everyone's needs are truly met. We have people who are economics majors and have no interest in medicine whatsoever who come to our meetings for the community and just to be around people who are genuine and
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authentic. So I do advise people to join MAPS. The biggest thing, however, I would say is networking. Networking will get you into rooms where grades never will. And that's even if you have a 4.0, learn how to network if that's something that makes you uncomfortable, I encourage you to be uncomfortable because at the end of the day, that might be the difference between you having to be on a wait-list and you getting an interview without even sending an application. And aside from that, your grades are always important. They are not everything, but your grades and your MCAT are factored into the holistic process of medical school applications. So I would encourage you to do that, focus on that. And if you do take a nosedive at the beginning and/or middle of your academic career, do not let that discourage you. If medicine or health care is where your passion is, stick with it. There are Post-Bac programs, Master's programs designed to help students in those situations and designed to help them pipeline into medical school. However, another important thing that I would suggest is getting a mentor. And it does not have to be just one. Get someone that you can relax with, get someone who will be on you academically, get someone who will motivate you. And then also find you someone who you aspire to emulate and how they carry themselves and where they are professionally and things of that nature. If you do those things, I mean, you cannot go wrong. And then also just remember to always invest in yourself and others, because who are you if you are not giving back? Yeah, that is all I have.
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Final Regards: Veronica Prince Prospective students should take heed to Veronica’s words here. She is the epitome of determination in synchronization to time management. She networks exceptionally well and has been able to generate relationships with students and faculty here at Baylor as well as beyond our campus into the surrounding community. She has been as motivated a student as she has been as passionate about her future. Her discipline to get work done has proven to be next to none but most importantly, she continues to reach back and elevate the next generation of diverse leaders. She has continued the legacies of those before her and has worked hard to ensure their proliferation amongst those who came after.
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Conclusion To the prospective students who are looking to become Baylor Bears, The students and faculty presented in this issue are but a fraction of the well-versed and successful students who have achieved, have endured, and have maintained their academic success while continuing to push their envelopes, respectively. Baylor is an esteemed institution that offers many resources such as free-tutoring, academic mentorship, and a plethora of extracurricular options and networking opportunities. In addition, Baylor faculty have set aside flexible hours to encourage students to interact with them and forge relationships to assist them academically as well as professionally. Ranging from professor office hours to Career Center and Academic advisement, these resources provide a leg up for your growth as a student, thus leading you into the professional world. The Pre-Health, PreBusiness, and many of the other Pre-Professional offices aid their students through specialized career advisement that would otherwise be more challenging to acquire at any other institution. The key for students, however, is to take the initiative and express vigor in their pursuit for success. There is no denying that the journey is difficult. You will find that there will be moments where your passions are tested. You will also find that your major as well as your career aspirations may change, and that it is ok. It is important to be patient with yourself as a student while also doing your best to
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determine your niche. However, as with anything and everything in life, the measure of yourself will not be the strife you may face but how you persevere through the adversity. It will show you the value you have behind your strength and your voice. Our experiences through academia are more valuable than we give ourselves credit for and they provide our communities hope to transcend social and economic barriers. We hope that this first edition will not only shed light on what Baylor has to offer but will also encourage the prevalence of diversity to stand out amongst the student and faculty body within academia and the professional world.
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Dedication As the first authors to execute the vision of Mosaic, we are proud to have been given opportunity to highlight such amazing individuals and to provide insight to the progression of Baylor Bioscience. This first edition was completed under the supervision of the architect of this project, Baylor MAPS president twice removed Arham Siddiqui, Baylor MAPS president once removed Veronica Prince, and the current Baylor MAPS president Veda Kulkarni. Arham Siddiqui’s vision for Mosaic included developing a well-rounded student-led publication that could highlight the achievements and experiences of minority students and faculty related to the field of healthcare and beyond. Through Mosaic, he had hoped to emphasize the significance of the varying cultures and backgrounds present on Baylor’s campus and inspire readers to gain a better understanding of the multiformity present within the Baylor PreHealth community. Arham Siddiqui was an example to our MAPS chapter encouraging us as students to forge a path and effectively become trailblazers within Pre-Health. With him, he had an objective to improve the Baylor community holistically. He now is a Baylor Alumni Class of 2019 and has been rewarded the opportunity to become a physician, yet his impact continues to be felt in the very words now presented.
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Additional Resources Faculty Resources Dr. Elizabeth Palacios-Dean of Student Development: https://www.baylor.edu/equity/index.php?id=957291
Dr. Maria Cecilia de Mesa-Chemistry Department Senior Lecturer: https://www.baylor.edu/chemistry/index.php?id=950870
Dr. Rizalia Klausmeyer-Director of Undergraduate Research: https://www.baylor.edu/chemistry/index.php?id=953982
Dr. Dwayne D. Simmons-Biology Department Chair: https://www.baylor.edu/biology/index.php?id=960631
Dr. Jesse W. Jones-Chemistry Department Professor: https://www.baylor.edu/chemistry/index.php?id=950861
Organizational Resources Baylor University: https://www.baylor.edu/
Office of Undergraduate Admissions: https://www.baylor.edu/admissions/index.php?id=871966
Baylor Prehealth Office: https://www.baylor.edu/prehealth/
Baylor Office of Undergraduate Research: https://www.baylor.edu/engagedlearning/index.php?id=950291
Baylor Transdisciplinary Research Undergraduate Experience: https://www.baylor.edu/engagedlearning/index.php?id=960902
Science Research Fellows: https://www.baylor.edu/admissions/index.php?id=935382
McNair Scholars Program: https://www.baylor.edu/mcnairscholars/
Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU-Site): https://www.baylor.edu/casper/index.php?id=83937
Joint Admission Medical Program (JAMP): https://www.baylor.edu/prehealth/index.php?id=36404
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Mission of MAPS The Multicultural Association of Pre-Health Students is a student-run organization at Baylor University that is committed to promoting diversity and inclusion in the health care field. We additionally facilitate service-learning opportunities to prepare our members to provide for the health care needs of individuals from varying backgrounds, cultures, and socioeconomic levels. It is the mission of the Multicultural Association of Pre-Health Students to foster a community for our members where they are able to explore, better understand, and appreciate the various backgrounds that make up the patient and healthcare professional populations.
Submissions to Mosaic Mosaic is not limited to perspective articles. Rather, it can also incorporate research articles and creative pieces such as literature reviews and poems. If you are interested in being featured in Mosaic, please reach out to the current Mosaic chair of the Multicultural Association of Pre-Health Students or any other member of the executive board who is within contact of the Mosaic committee. This publication is available for all students to discover cultures besides their own and to learn, accept, and understand our diverse Baylor community.
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service & diversity Baylor University Chapter