2021 GlobalMindED
The Future of Work is Diverse, Inclusive, Just and Equitable
GlobalMindED closes the equity gap by creating a capable, diverse talent pipeline through connections to role models, mentors, internships for low-income students, returning adults, First Gen to college and inclusive leaders who teach them, work with them and hire them.
|
|
As we continue to celebrate Black History Month, meet Dr. Renee Horton, a girl who dreamed of being an astronaut and became a NASA STEM star, author, and Louisianian of the year! Read her incredible story below.
Join us for these Black History Month Equity Topics. Details and sign up below:
-
2/22 Health: Mobilizing Successful, Timely Vaccines in Communities of Color
-
2/23 STEM: Breaking Black Barriers in STEM: Creating a Capable Diverse Talent Pipeline
-
2/24 Foundations/Funders: Building Communities of Inclusive Strength - ROI for Investment, Equity and Outcomes
-
2/25 Tech: Black Education Leaders Normalize BIPOCs in Tech - Creating a Diverse Talent Pipeline
The GlobalMindED YouTube channel has over 90 DEI webinars primarily led by leaders of color with panelists from a variety of backgrounds. Share with your colleagues in your company, your university or learning institution and your children, friends and family.
Recent Equity events:
|
|
What is your personal story (growing up, struggles you faced, experiences that made you who you are)?
It’s weird sometimes thinking of my personal story. When I tell it, I tell the highlights. I grew up in a two parent middle class home. Lived with both my parents until they divorced. While they were together they were able to provide us with plenty of opportunities that sparked my interest and my love of science. My 9th Christmas I received a telescope and that’s truly when my love of outer space was triggered and I decided soon after I wanted to be an astronaut. These are my good memories - there were bees in my tree that every year we had to call the people at Louisiana State University to come and get the honey and the queen. Every year I watched and one year I attempted the extraction myself. We grew watermelons along with some cucumbers next to the wild blackberry patch in our backyard one summer. My brother always loved dogs and I was always inquisitive and grateful for my parents fueling that fire until they no longer could. At 13 my parents divorced and my mother could no longer afford to take care of us and all those extras for Christmas and birthdays were no more. I learned at 13 that old men like groping young girls because it made them feel like they were important. This fueled my desire to graduate early and get out of the space I was in. I graduated at 16, at 17 I found out I was defective, in my eyes. I learned during my AFROTC physical I was hearing disabled. Don’t really know if it was late onset or late diagnosis, but what I do know is that it changed my life completely. My dreams were crushed and the path I had designed for myself had crumbled before my eyes. My boyfriend consoled me, we got pregnant, we got married, we traveled with his career as a military policeman, we separated, and I moved back home. This was over a period of 8 years. My two sons were created during this time and they saved me from myself. That’s all I have to say about that - about my ex-husband that is. My daughter was born and changed my life; she pushed me to want the world to be different. I wanted her walk in life to be different than mine, so I went back to school, and dealt with my hearing loss by learning the best way to live with my disability. After getting my undergrad from LSU in 2002 , I became the first black to get my specific degree, a Ph.D. of Material Science with a concentration of Physics from the University of Alabama in 2011. Eight months after graduation I started working for NASA as a civil servant, after working two years as a student.
My obstacles in life have taught me resiliency and perseverance. They taught me how to get up and put on a coat of armor and make it through the day and to cry in the shower at the end of the night, to sleep well, and repeat the next day. Maturing taught me how to take care of myself while I’m fighting to change the face of STEM and demanding the seat at the table while constructing my own table.
What has it been like to break barriers in Aerospace as a Black woman?
It’s a lonely journey sometimes. I have met others that have come before me and I know I am standing directly on their shoulders, that I’m standing on greatness. When I think that I have been in this industry for a decade and it’s still not truly inviting or accepting of our talents as black women, it’s sad. When truly talent is stifled you lock away solutions, inventions, creations and results. As a black woman in Aerospace I really only feel celebrated on the surface and not really included for my talent and my intellectual ability.
|
|
Can you share your inspiration for writing children’s science/space books?
I wrote the books so little black and brown babies, kids who may have a hearing disability, or who were different could see people who looked like them doing amazing things. I want the books to spark their imagination and allow them to dream of being other places and it allows kids who don’t look like me to understand that people who may not look like them can be great also.
I’m working on two more books, hopefully to be released this year, one to continue the Dr. H Explores the Universe series found on Amazon and another to start an older series, chapter book style. I love the creative outlet allows me a break from the reality of my career and the craziness going on around us.
|
|
Tell us about how being a Fellow and the second woman to be elected President of the National Society of Black Physicists will open doors for girls of color.
Being president of any organization that is male dominated is a difficult task as a woman; an organization that is black male dominated is even more difficult. I spent two years as president and one year as past president of an organization whose active members questioned my every decision and criticized how I was running the board and speaking for the organization. We were in debt, we were merely existing, just surviving when I took office and while in this volunteer position, I continued to work my regular job taking leave when needed, and turned the organization around. At the end of my term in the business meeting, I was virtually patted on the back and said that I had done a good job, some acknowledged I had saved the organization. I was exhausted and during my tenure as president, I will admit I broke, and had a nervous break. I was dealing with white men at work and black men in my organization, with the benefit of no man in my life. Being made a fellow of the organization that I credited to saving my during graduate school was the biggest honor of my life at the moment. It ranks second in honors, well maybe third now to the greatest moments of honor in my life. 1st is being inducted into the LSU Alumni Hall of Distinction and being voted one of the Louisianians of the Year in 2019.
|
|
I know each role I play in a public arena allows little black girls to dream bigger and imagine themselves in places I may never go. Each time I survive a situation and move to a different level, I have opened the door for others to follow me. I’m hoping they understand and will appreciate that I am not just opening doors but removing them from their hinges so that if they so choose to walk the path I did, they too can achieve greatness. |
|
Click below to watch the Inclusive Leader Award Ceremony featuring inspirational messages from the diverse Award Winners
|
|
GlobalMindED and the SDG Impact Fund are delighted to announce GlobalMindED's Donor Advised Fund. 2020 is the 75th Anniversary of the United Nations and the 25th Anniversary of the Beijing Women's Declaration and Action Platform. Many from around the world are thinking of 2020 as the gateway to our most vital decade for delivering equity, the Sustainable Development Goals, and a world where all can thrive. Our key time for these outcomes is 2020-2030.
GlobalMindED DAF and the SDG Impact Fund are a powerful combined force for good as the 2019 year comes to a close and we reflect on the gratitude and the commitments we make to the causes we care most about. The DAF offers immense power and flexibility for giving prior to the year's end as you plant seeds of generous intention for 2020 and the decade ahead.
When you contribute to GlobalMindED, you support First Gen students. We have served more than 400 students by connecting them to role models, mentors, internships and jobs. Your generous support will allow us to take our work 10x and reach these talented students at scale who lack the resources and support we provide. Your support also helps teachers who can't afford the conference fees, faculty at colleges which are under resourced and students who persist at those universities despite food insecurity and/or housing insecurity.
|
|
Links to read about Inclusive Leaders, many of whom are African American and people of color:
Curated sessions from GlobalMindED 2020 YouTube channel:
|
|
From the Center for Positive Organizations:
From the Economist:
From Forbes:
From Harvard Business Review:
From the World Academy of Art & Science and UN; Geneva Global Leadership in the 21st Century econference:
|
|
Listen here for an interview with Pam Newkirk, GlobalMindED speaker and author of Diversity Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion- Dollar Business.
|
|
Meet GlobalMindED Founder, Carol Carter as interviewed by Tim Moore on his podcast Success Made to Last: From Success to Significance
Listen to Part 1 of Carol's interview
Listen to Part 2 of Carol's interview
|
|
Recent GlobalMindED Newsletter Profiles:
|
|
Since 2006 when the flagship TGR Learning Lab opened its doors in Anaheim, CA, TGR Foundation has had a lot to celebrate, including its most recent milestone of one million students impacted by TGR EDU: Explore, alone.
Developed in partnership with Discovery Education, TGR EDU: Explore is a free digital resource library that offers interactive web experiences, lesson plans, training videos and tools for educators, students and families to explore new disciplines and gain skills for a modern and expanding workforce.
|
|
As you start the New Year, are you looking for ways to re-engineer your classroom culture? Check out Designing the Future: How Engineering Builds Creative Critical Thinking in the Classroom. The associated website has lots of activities, projects, and resources you can implement immediately. Our fall workshops using the book as a roadmap for change have been highly successful. Start designing the future today - try using the customized Study Guide for a book study in your PLC. Or contact ProjectEngin or Solution Tree to learn how you can bring professional development based on Ann's book to your school, district, or conference.
|
|
|
|
THE FLYOVER NATION
Energy's Role in a Troubled Heartland
By J.C. Whorton
A unique and timely discussion of the challenging issues facing the country’s troubled Heartland.
Since the beginning of westward expansion into the Heartland’s vast regions, natural resource development has played a historic role in shaping its communities. Today, domestic oil and gas development offers one of the strongest prospects for the Heartland’s present and future prosperity as well as the nation’s re-emergence as a dominant player in the global energy economy.
The U.S. is now the world’s largest producer of crude oil and natural gas, two circumstances that are universally disrupting international geopolitical order. The earth has a finite supply of natural resources and a rapidly growing and over consuming population.
As America positions itself for a very uncertain and constantly evolving global marketplace, will the Heartland become America’s “great connector” or “great divide”?
|
|
J.C. Whorton is a senior level energy and financial professional with over forty years of essential experience. Having a ranching and Native American heritage, Mr. Whorton is a strong advocate for rural education and economic development initiatives.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
