SGA Deputy Director of Health Co-Chair: Michael Rankins

Birmingham, Alabama

Major: Biology

Minor: Public Health

Pre-Medical

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc. President

Student Government Association 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 thing that I found myself to clinging to and 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 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.

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 you get a sense of grounding, and it gets a little weird when the room gets 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 on programs, when you're 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 an 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 it's mentoring for the youth in Waco, specifically for brown males in middle school. It is basically a mentorship between the students of Baylor and those students in Waco. And just have 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 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.

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 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?

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 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.

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.