Getting Ready for Advanced Degrees (GRAD) with Dr. Marcus Huggans

This episode is a conversation with Dr. Marcus Huggans, Executive Director of Client Relations for the National GEM Consortium. We speak about GEM's rich history in increasing the numbers of scholars from traditionally marginalized racial and ethnic identities earning degrees in STEM, the importance of mentoring and social capital, and the benefits of being part of the GEM family.

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Transcript

00:01 ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Engineering Change, the podcast designed to help REDEFINE engineering by RE-imaging, who we see as engineers and what we see as engineering, DE-siloing academic programs, research and problem solving and FINE-tuning academic and workforce culture and climate so people from all backgrounds and identities can succeed. Each episode will leave you with strategies to put into practice wherever you are in the process of ENGINEERING CHANGE. And now here's your host, Dr. Yvette E. Pearson.

00:35 DR YEP: Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy related cause than white women. A study by researchers at Georgetown University found that the mortality rate for pedestrians using wheelchairs is 36 percent higher than the overall population pedestrian mortality rate. The National Institute of Standards and Technology reports that Asian and African-American people were up to 100 times more likely to be misidentified by facial recognition technology than white men, depending on the particular algorithm and the type of search that was being used, and that Native Americans had the highest false positive rate of all ethnicities. What do these societal inequities have in common? They are all connected to the lack of diversity in engineering and other STEM fields, and this lack of diversity is rooted in inequities and isms in our academic institutions and our workplaces and in our society as a whole. So then it comes, full circle. I frequently remind folks that we cannot effectively solve problems for a heterogeneous society with homogeneous groups of problem solvers. That's one reason why the work of organizations such as the National GEM Consortium is so important. It creates opportunities and reduces barriers for students from historically minorities identities to earn advanced degrees in STEM. But it doesn't stop there. It can't stop there. What's happening when students get on our campuses are when  new employees begin working in our organizations? Are they getting the same levels and quality of mentoring and sponsorship? Are they being included so they can build the social capital that has been extremely important to so many people navigating our careers and gaining exposure to opportunities we might not have otherwise encountered? Our guest today is executive director of Client Relations at the National GEM Consortium at the age of 25, he became the first African-American man to receive a Ph.D. in engineering, management and the management of technology from Missouri University of Science and Technology. He speaks with thousands of students each year, encouraging them to pursue advanced degrees in STEM. And what he values above all of his professional accomplishments is that he is a child of God and a proud husband and father. I invite you to grab a latte and join us as we dive into engineering change with Dr. Marcus Huggins. Dr. Huggins, thank you so much for taking time to be with us today.

04:05 DR HUGGANS: I thank you so much. Dr. Pearson is is such a pleasure to be able to spend this time with you.

04:10 DR YEP: All right now. Look, one thing I'm going to tell you, OK, now we're going to be real from this point on. You know, you call me Yvette. You know, I call you, Marcus, so let's can we just go there?

04:21 DR HUGGANS: Alright. I will. I will.

04:24 DR YEP: We got to be first named today, but no, really. I thank you, and I always like to honor and respect those titles and earned credentials, so I always kick it off that way. I do like to start these episodes just to let the audience know a little bit about how I initially connected with the guest. And I think ours is kind of an interesting story that we may not quite have figured out yet. I remember meeting you. I can't remember what year, but it was at one of the GEM conferences. Actually, it was my very first GEM conference. And I was there representing my university at the time. I had just two weeks before that time been asked to be GEM rep for our campus, which I was like, OK. And then it was, by the way, there's this conference in two weeks. So I packed a bag and hopped on a plane and was there. Now the funny thing is, I was sitting at the table with a colleague from Tufts at the time, and there was a cousin whom I engaged with on social media, on the phone and everything else with. But I never recall ever meeting her in person, but I saw lots of pictures and I'm looking across the room and I'm very, very nearsighted. So even with my glasses, I'm squinting like, I was like, you know, I told my colleague from Tufts who was sitting next to me, Dr. Lamott, I said "You know, I think that's my cousin over there". And she said, "Well, you want me to go ask her because I don't mind going over there." I'm like, OK, by all means. So she went. Sure enough, it was my cousin, Dr. Loretta Cheeks. And she came over and I remember after that dinner, she said, I need to introduce you to another one of our cousins. And it was Dr. Marcus Huggins, and I'm like, OK, so how are we related?

06:25 DR HUGGANS: We've got to figure that out one day. Well, but it was such a pleasure to know that we have a pedigree in our family,  you know, all of us. And just having, you know, all of this, not just a Ph.D., but in STEM. So that just she has a Ph.D. in computer science, you a Ph.D. in civil engineering and environmental engineering. And Me, also a Ph.D. in engineering management with the focus on management of technology. So it's just really good to see that our family has good strong genes.

07:00 DR YEP: Yes.

07:01 DR YEP: And we have to figure out what those genes are still. But yes, it's been very nice to connect. So needless to say, we've we've stayed connected, of course, initially through my representation of my university with GEM, but that started a relationship. It's something about the GEM family and the GEM network. And although I'm not a GEM alum, I just find that it's a close knit family. It's a community. And it's this is like once connected to GEM, always connected to GEM, however that happens.

07:34 DR HUGGANS: Amen, Amen. That's exactly right. You know, GEM, we we really say the first time you start an application with us, you become part of our family. Not everyone can get a GEM fellowship just because there is a limited and a number of GEM fellowships that we can offer just because of the sheer number of students that apply and the financial resources that are available. However, once you become part of the GEM family, there are still notifications that go out of those who just start an application. So this is it's, as you mentioned, you are part of the GEM family once you once you start that GEM application.

08:14 DR YEP: Yes. And so I'm at a whole nother university now, but y'all are stuck with me, I guess, before we go any further. Some people might be saying, What are they talking about, GEM? So we're talking about GEM and GEM, the National GEM Consortium. Marcus, why don't you tell our audience members a little bit about GEM? What what it is and why it exists?

08:36 DR HUGGANS: Absolutely. So the National GEM Consortium was started back in 76' with the intent of sending underrepresented students to get their masters at that time and now a Ph.D. starting in the 90s to get them advanced degrees in STEM. This started on the campus of Notre Dame back in 76', and now we have moved to D.C. Over that time, we have sent over 6000 underrepresented students underrepresented R U R M to graduate schools that have now finished their master's and or Ph.D. and now are doing many different things than capacities. I could spend the rest of the time with you going through our going through our alums alums, but I'll just mention some of the ones that folks may know first, Ursula, Ursula Burns, who actually started as an intern at Xerox and retired as CEO. And Reggie Van Lee, who is the chief transformational officer at the Carlyle Group. We have half of the minority female deans of engineering, and some of their male counterparts are GEM Allum. Some of them have made the transition from dean to president. That's President Darryl Pynes and also President Lisa Crumpton. Young it. Texas Southern University, Houston. So I could just keep going. We have so many different allums that are doing amazing things, also not just in academia but also in the national laboratories and things of that nature. But I also want to say that the person's voice that you're hearing right now is also a GEM allum. So GEM changed my life and it gave me the opportunity to go to graduate school for free.

10:28 DR YEP: Yeah, and so. So starting with that point, and you're right, and I will shout out some other folks, I was actually as you were calling out the positions and titles of people's names were running through my head. So I can't go without recognizing my good friend and colleague Dean Stephanie Adams, who has multiple connections to GEM because of not only being a GEM alumna, but also because of her father's rich history with GEM and making GEM into the organization that it has grown into today.

11:00 DR HUGGANS: Absolutely. We would be remiss if we left out Dr. Howard Adams. Absolutely. He started, he took GEM from a concept that was on paper to what it is today. And and so just to let you know the rich history. He really. All those things I was calling out, those are his we call them Howard's kids.

11:25 DR YEP: Exactly. I was about to say. He personally mentored so many of our leaders. It's amazing.

11:33 DR HUGGANS: You know, and I'm the last. I'm the last of the lot of Howard's kids. So I was the year he retired was the year that I was accepted in the GEM program. Now, being able to work with him in a different capacity, doing workshops with him, he has really continued to pour into my life so that now I could do the same for those that are coming now that they're calling themselves. I don't know if they're calling themselves this, but Marcus' kids.

12:00 DR YEP: I haven't heard that one yet, but I've certainly heard of the Marcus influence. I know on our very first interview episode of the podcast, we talked to Dr. Sossena Wood, and she spoke about how you were so instrumental in her pursuing and ultimately earning her Ph.D.. And it's funny because we actually mentioned you by name in that episode. I don't know if you heard the shout out, but we even talked about that smile and that laugh and how you have a way of looking people on in. So.

12:36 DR HUGGANS: My goodness, yes, we call it affectionately CC, Sossena Wood,but CC, I am so proud of her. Just one quick story about her. I knew how great she was when I met her as she was a sophomore at University of Pittsburgh. But when I was flying from Dallas to somewhere on American Airlines flight, I looked up and I was watching this video clip from the National Science Foundation. And then I see Cecina Wood talking about her research. I was talking to the passenger, the passenger right next to me, and I was saying, Wow, that's my student, he said. That is not your student. I said, her name is Cecina Wood. And as soon as those soon as that name came out of my mouth, her name popped up at the bottom, he said, That is your student, I say so. I tell that story because I knew how great she was back when she was a sophomore. Now the world knows how great she is, and I'm just so happy to have played just a small part in her success because she was going. She's a shooting star. I knew it from the get go, so this is so happy to have been able to play a part in her life.

13:42 DR YEP: Yes. I mean, if folks haven't checked it out, check out episode two of Engineering Change from May 2020. Or maybe it's June 2020. At this point, I don't remember, but it was my very first interview episode and it was just a dynamic conversation. And even up until I think I last checked the stats on the podcast last week, and that episode is still the most downloaded episode. People have contacted me since that time, saying they were able to connect their students with mentors because they were having problems finding black faculty, black researchers in the area of neuro engineering. And when they heard her, they were able to make these connections that she was all too eager to welcome. And so I really, really appreciated having her on and being able to share a bit of her journey and her wisdom and her research with us. It was phenomenal.

14:42 DR HUGGANS: If it is, I'm just sitting here smiling because now I have a daughter who just started college at the University of Texas, and I connected CC to my daughter to talk about bioengineering and biomedical engineering because now she's able to mentor my daughter. So how about that?

15:01 DR YEP: And that's that's what you call coming full circle that circle of life that we talk about, right? Yes. 

15:10 DR HUGGANS: But we're happy that she's able to pour into my daughter now so

15:13 DR YEP: That sowing and reaping.

15:16 DR HUGGANS: Absolutely. All right.

15:19 DR YEP: So you mentioned earlier that GEM has supported nearly 7000 students to complete advanced degrees in STEM. I think one of the things that I still come across very frequently is that people don't realize that you really should not be paying for a Ph.D. in STEM. When I go and talk to student groups, student chapters of our professional organizations and you go to talk to them about grad school because some of them are so strapped with financial debt from student loans and things like that, and just just trying to get out of school so they can go to that job and work and pay off those student loans. And so they look at a higher degree as more loans. And so I guess I want to spend a little time there because I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions about pursuing a PhD. I do know some master's degrees do require you to come out of pocket, but you're starting to see more programs now that are focusing on support for master's degrees, but especially PhDs. The school really pays you to come and get a Ph.D. because they universities, their faculty members have funding from agencies for research and most universities that are research universities have some sort of coffers that come from research funds to help support and offset the cost of your expenses. Plus, the researchers have funding for stipends to support that. Now, granted, it's not the same as the income you would get from an industry job. I considered it a short term sacrifice for long term gain. So talk a little bit about that and kind of that concept of helping people understand the mechanisms of funding graduate studies and also what GEM's role is in that. 

17:19 DR HUGGANS: Absolutely. Just like I said, I could talk about alumni for the duration of this call. You know, I could. I love talking about money. Is particularly free money. So this is a this is really near and dear to me, seeing underrepresented students, particularly underrepresented students, getting their masters and PhDs fully funded because a lot of us don't talk about this in our circles. They don't know that you should not pay for graduate school, particularly STEM graduate school, if you're going full time. Now again, as you mentioned earlier, sometimes master's programs are not fully funded, but by and large, now a lot of companies want these professionals to commit those additional credentials, so they are starting to pay for those type of programs as well. But for PhD anyone, regardless of ethnicity, if you're going full time in a STEM field you should not be paying for graduate school, no one should. Now the school may pay, but you shouldn't, as a student should be paying. It's kind of I liken it to this if you are going to go work at X Y Z company and every two weeks you show up and you pay them for the pleasure of working at that point, then that's kind of like what you're doing. If you're paying for a Ph.D. at a at a school, you should not pay for graduate school. And one of the things that I want to point out, we talk about this at a program that we call Grad Lab affectionately GRAD lab. It stands for getting ready for advanced degree laboratory, and we do four workshops. One is why you should go to graduate school. How to apply to graduate school, had a fun graduate school and then we do a role model piece called Voices from the Field. But in that funding portion, we spend a lot of time and the mantra that you will hear if you come to a grad lab is graduate school is free. I always have the students stand up and say their first and last name and put PhD behind it. But after that, I have them also say that graduate school is free because no one should pay to go to graduate school. Not one cent,if you're going full time. So that's how I would say about graduate school and how GEM plays a portion in that ,one, we try to educate everyone so that they know what they want to go to graduate school. There are Grad Labs and other some of our info sessions. They would hear that information and then two, if they apply to the GEM Fellowship. We have over 130 of the top 50 engineering programs, HBCU, all of the Ivies. These are the organizations and universities that want to see you go to graduate school for free. And then we also have national laboratories as well as Fortune 100 and fortune 500 companies that also partner with us to give students that experience that they can also see how their graduate degree would fit in that type of environment. So now you see the several trajectories that your career could go, whether academia, whether in R&D and then also like you can also entrepreneurial all three, so you get to all three. So it's a great opportunity to get that advanced degree because I always say this. The Ph.D. is the liberal arts degree of the 21st century. What I mean by that, if you get a Ph.D., you can do just about anything like back in the day when my mom went to school. If you got a liberal arts degree, you could pretty much do anything what it would. You will open up just about any door that you would want to go through.

21:17 DR YEP: And a Ph.D. in STEM to. I mean, that's basically write your own ticket. I mean, I know a lot of folks have the idea that you start to really narrow your options because a lot of people do go to academia. But that's one thing that I like, certainly. Now let me backtrack and say this. I want to see more people who look like you and me come into STEM academia. But if that's not for you when we hope it is, but if it's not, that's what I like about GEM. Because with the wide range of employer partners, whether it's government, big industry consulting all of these areas, you have an opportunity, as Marcus said, to go in with this internship that if you're selected as a full GEM fellow and we'll talk about what that means in just a minute. But if you're selected as a full GEM fellow, you get an internship with these companies and you get a chance to get your foot in the door. Get your get your hands on the actual work to see why your skill set is really needed and really valued in these different settings. So before we go farther, let's talk about those different levels. I mentioned full GEM fellow. Why don't you talk about the different levels of fellowships and what comes with that?

22:43 DR HUGGANS: Absolutely. So we used to call every GEM fellow that was selected by an employer, a full fellow, because they were coming with money. We pivoted from the full fellow to employer fellow because actually selected by employers, so that employer fellow. But those students that apply to GEM, they are interviewed by one of our employers. And that employer says this is the kind of student that once they complete their degree, we would want to consider offering them an opportunity. They're not. They dont't have to. But these at the time that they see their application, they think that that's going to be a good fit for them. So those are the AKA full fellows. But now we're calling the employee fellows.

23:28 DR YEP: See I wasn't aware of that pivot. I need to keep up on my GEM terminology. I stepped  away about a year or so ago, so.

23:38 DR HUGGANS: That's about what it happened And now. And then we have what we have called the University Fellowship University fellow right. Those investor masters only fellows and you know. As we mentioned earlier, distance to go to graduate school for free, but there's not a lot of master's programs that are fully funded. But as a university fellow, you will have the university pick up your tuition and fees. There's no stipend that comes along with that. But as Yvette said, most master's programs are not funded. So if you get a GEM university fellowship, that's a good deal. And then finally, the other criteria that we have is the GEM associate fellow. Those are the lion's share of them are Ph.D. students. But we do have some masters that fit in that category. And what comes with that is a GEM tuition, fees and as well as stipend, and the stipend is consistent with everyone else in that department. So if you're a chemical engineering and everyone in that department is getting $30000 a year was as a GEM associate all you will get the same $30000. Like everyone else in your department. So it's a really good deal. Whether you get a GEM employee or fellow ship, that would be where you actually have the tuition and fees, stipend and internship. The associate fellow is the tuition fees, a stipend, and then the university fellow is tuition and fees again fully funded. As we say, a graduate school is free, but there's different levels of the free category, particularly as you dove into the PhD realm. There's just much, much more money, if you will take the initial plunge into the PhD

25:30 DR YEP: Yes, and certainly, like I said, we absolutely need more PhDs from various underrepresented or historically underrepresented and historically marginalized identities. When we look at what we see in academia, we're certainly not seeing representation that is consistent and I'll speak for engineering because that's my world and yours too Marcus. But when we look at engineering and we look at the types of problems engineers are solving and are needing to solve, these are big societal problems that can't have a one size fits all approach. And so we can't have one size fits all engineers, our engineering professors, our engineering researchers. We need to have that diversity of experience, diversity of perspectives, diversity of skills, all of those things to come together. And not only that, as we look at what we're doing to increase the numbers like GEM is doing. What I hope the universities are also doing that they're looking at what is it going to take to make sure that our universities are places where everybody can succeed? I don't need to go to a university and I'll say for myself being an HBCU alumna. So going to a university where my my capabilities are in question just because I'm graduating from an HBCU are just because I'm a black woman. We need to be looking at our systems so that as we're increasing the recruitment of the students, we're making sure our culture and climate in our organizations are in check so that they don't encounter. You know, I said this once I was accepting an award from a bet that was talking in the context of my daughter, who also started college this year. And I said, You know, when she goes to college, yes, I want the challenges that she faces to be limited to the rigor of her coursework and not the culture and climate she encounters. That's right. So it's not to say we don't expect rigor. We don't expect challenges. Heck, yes, we do with the doggone engineering Ph.D. it's gonna be challenging is not for everybody. But let that be the challenge. You know, when I went to get my Ph.D. atmospheric dispersion modeling and trying to learn statistics from a cancer researcher, I had to understand cancer research to figure out how to do the statistics. You know, let that be the challenge. Don't let it be that you're second guessing me because of my identities are where I got my degree from. And so what I love is when you go to a GEM conference, you see all of these universities there and you're sitting at these tables with these corporate partners. I mean, I think at the last one that I was able to attend in person, which I wasn't able to attend the one in 2021, but the one in, I guess, 2019 was the last in-person one before that. But sitting at the table with Amazon folks and Google folks and all of these people and having conversations and rich conversations about all of the possibilities and just hearing the success stories of the scholars. And another thing that's exciting to me at the conference is when you all have the competitions. Yes, those scholars are bringing it. You talk about some research that is out of this world, oh my goodness, it is just it is just amazing the things that they are accomplishing.

29:25 DR HUGGANS: Absolutely. Yeah. It's the GEM Conference was actually birthed out of our board meeting by us being a or one seed three nonprofit. We're required to have a shareholders meeting, but just so that we don't have folks gathering to raise a paddle about, you know, talking about, you know, policies and procedures. We package it with a conference. And with that conference, we have workshops for our GEM representatives. We have workshops for our GEM fellows and also have workshops for potential GEM fellows. So everyone has something to participate at the GEM conference. But what you just mentioned is the technical presentation competition, as well as our poster session. Yes, I love those because I mentioned to you before we got on that I was a member of Toastmasters. And what I wanted to do through the technical presentation competition, was to give those students a gift that they could use lifelong. And what that is is to be able to talk about not just yourself, but about your research in a technical brief, so that it would wet the appetite of whoever is listening to you. So they'll ask more. And so those students that come through, they have to be able to give a technical brief in less than seven minutes and then also be able to respond to technical judges that have at least a minimal of a master's, most of them have PhD and respond to their questions accordingly. So they have. It's kind of like a pre dissertation. 

31:00 DR YEP: I was about to say it's practice for a defense and they are ready. They are ready.

31:09 DR HUGGANS: So yeah, I love it because what we do, we typically have about a somewhere between 50 to 60 students that present in that and then what we call championship because all of them are champions. But the ones that raise to the occasion and the judges will nominate six of the two, six of the two rooms that we have a group of students that are masters or first year PhD. And then we have PhD that are later on down their trajectory and those and they compete. And those are the ones that you will see on a Saturday. And we call them Championship Saturday because those are the ones that have gone through that, the rigor and those are the ones that we see on Saturday morning. And it's such a joy to see all of the students participate. But then the ones that actually compete on Saturday are just amazing. And so that's what you experience on a Saturday at a GEM conference. I wanted to also say that we also do that grad lab. Yes, if students are there regionally where we're going to be in Phoenix, Arizona, this year. Covid pending. So we'll be there locally in Phoenix. And so we have any regional schools that want to bring their undergraduates to that conference and want to learn about grad school, how to do it competitively and how to finance it adequately so they don't pay anything. That's where you should show up. We'll all be there and hopefully we'll have a cameo from Dr. Howard G. Adams to tell you why you should go to grad school.

32:47 DR YEP: Awesome! 

32:49 DR HUGGANS: I would love to everyone to come to our conference and experience what we do at that conference.

32:56 DR YEP: And you know, with that, I would say, Well, let me ask this are you still doing the graduate fair as well?

33:05 DR HUGGANS: We do the graduate fare as well. So that would also be for our graduate students. So GEM is not just for the GEM Fellows. They're all the students that want to come their current graduate students, and they want to come participate in our conference. They can definitely be participants of our conference. The benefit of that is that we do have the companies there or if you also are looking to start graduate school, we have the universities there. So it's a great opportunity to meet your potential new graduate program director as well as maybe our GEM employer. So, so it is a really great environment to be included in. And also, you get a chance to meet the classes of GEM Fellows. So we have students that were just selected this year. So their class of 2021 and now this next upcoming year's Class 2022. So you'll see some of the new GEM Fellows and some of the existing ones. So it's a great community, as you mentioned.

34:09 DR YEP: Now I just have one question because I'm not GEM Rep. anymore. But am I still invited?

34:15 DR HUGGANS: Absolutely. Always invited, you're always invited, you know, we always have a seat at the table for you. 

34:21 DR YEP: You know what? It's so funny because out of all of the places I've been in this country and in this world, I have never been to Arizona. I've been to nearly every state in the country, and I have never been to Arizona, so I might need to pay my cousin, Dr. Cheeks, a visit and show up for a GEM. This year. I'm going to have to see if it works for me. I have to see if I can, if I can swing that.

34:49 DR HUGGANS: Well, hey, well, come September, you will not be able to say you've never been to Arizona. So we just need to make sure that we got enough. We got another runway to orchestrate your life to get you there in September, so hopefully you'll be able to join us. But you always will have. You will all at. Once a GEM rep. always a GEM rep.

35:08 DR YEP: Well, the other thing is, you know, maybe we can figure out how to do a live podcast episode there and engage with some of those scholars and employers and some of the universities there to just talk about some of the exciting things going on. And we get we could talk about maybe doing that.

35:25 DR HUGGANS: Absolutely. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. You know, I would love to see engineering change there at our GEM conference, giving us a little notoriety, as well as giving some of our very tirelessly working reps, as well as fellows and alumni the opportunity to tell their GEM story as well.

35:47 DR YEP: I'd be excited to do that. Yes, let's definitely talk about that. And, you know, we've been bragging on the scholars and the institutions and all these other great things about GEM, but there's something else that has come up recently that y'all can brag about. Do you want to share that with the audience?

36:08 DR HUGGANS: Absolutely. Thank you for that great lead-in. So just a week ago, two weeks ago now, we received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Math Engineering Mentoring, which is the highest awards you can get in mentoring. And we were nominated by one of the awardees. And so from 2020, and the White House gave us the official nod two weeks ago. And so we are very, very happy about that because it just validates all of the things that we were talking about, Dr. Adams, so many other executive directors that came behind him. And now the current leadership at GEM, we're continuing to hold that mantle high. And now again, now we have been recognized by the highest office in this country. This says GEM, you're doing a great job. So we're really excited about that. But we also it just says that there's much more to do because even though GEM has been recognized by the White House, there's still so many individuals that don't know what GEM does. There's so many individuals. There are not going to graduate school for free because they don't know what GEM is. There's so many, so many more lives that we need to touch. So I'm excited about the recognition, but it just says you're going to make me work even harder so that we can continue to get that message out about graduate school because graduate school should be all of our plans. Take it to take a little bit of juice from Dr. Adams, what he would say, we'd like to put some wings behind their dreams and, you know, so we want to say,

37:51 DR YEP: Yes.

37:53 DR HUGGANS: We want to see you fly and so we we can put some wings on your dreams and then you will be elevated. And there will not be a room that you cannot get inside and get into because you will have the credential to walk into those rooms.

38:07 DR YEP: Absolutely. Our roll into them, if you're me.

38:11 DR HUGGANS: I like to. I roll too. 

38:13 DR YEP: Yes, you can walk, you can roll whatever you have to do to get in. That's a really big deal. And for those of you who might not be familiar, you can just Google paesmem. It's P a e s m e m. And it's really, as Marcus said, it's the highest award that you can get of this type, and it's facilitated and awarded by the National Science Foundation. But the recognition actually comes from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and it's really recognizing individuals and organizations that have done just great things and made great strides to support the future of STEM in America. So kudos to you and Brennan and all of the rest of the team at GEM for just everything you've done and all of the leaders, Dr. Adams and everybody else in between too for all that you've done and not just GEM, because like you said, it's it's not just the people in the Alexandria, Virginia, office, it's it's the GEM consortium. So it's the universities, it's the employers, it's the scholars who are doing these groundbreaking things once they are in school and once they complete their degrees. And so kudos again to GEM and you all for that honor.

39:41 DR HUGGANS: Absolutely. And it's interesting because Dr. Adams received the first paesmem back in 96'.

39:47 DR YEP: I didn't realize that.

39:50 DR HUGGANS: Absolutely. Wow. And he wrote the recommendation letter for us to get our paesmem.

39:57 DR YEP: Wow.

39:59 DR HUGGANS: So it goes full circle, as you said,.

40:02 DR YEP: Circle of life, circle of life.

40:06 DR HUGGANS: And so I just, you know, I've had so many great experiences through GEM, but as I mentioned earlier on this podcast that GEM changed my life. And it wasn't so much of the money because believe me, I like the money that money showed up on the right day. But more importantly, when I went to the GEM conference and they had the technical presentation competition and I was competing against other GEM fellows from other universities. It's showed me two things one that I had a lot of work to do because I at my university, I might have been top dog,  but at this, in this and this group of students...

40:48 DR YEP: Everybody is top dog.

40:49 DR HUGGANS: Everybody was top, you know, top notch. And and I end up coming second and I didn't like second. 

40:57 DR YEP: Oh, come on now. Second in that group? That, that says a lot. But I understand. 

41:06 DR HUGGANS: But you know what I mean? But but so but it was just being in that environment, being amongst all these scholars. GEM  really put me in a situation where I saw black and brown excellence at the STEM at the highest level, and it made me push even harder to do the work. So yeah. And so now to be able to come back after working in industry and working at a university to give back to the organization that changed my life is, is amazing. It's amazing.

41:39 DR YEP: That is awesome. That's so awesome. So talking about giving back. I wanted I know that you all have a massive effort underway just to reconnect with GEM alumni and not that you're going to be reaching out, asking them for anything. But if they want an opportunity to give back and it doesn't have to be monetary, it could be time and come in to do help with grad labs and tell those personal stories so that the future scholars can see themselves in these spaces and tell us about your effort to reconnect with GEM alumni. I know you've got a couple of folks that are really hammering the social media networks and sending emails to try to connect with folks.

42:22 DR HUGGANS: Absolutely. So since GEM has been around 45 years, we have brought in other resources to help us reconnect with those folks before there were emails, before there was internet. 

42:36 DR YEP: Exactly.

42:38 DR HUGGANS: It's so, so now that the GEM fellows and allums that we have captured like after the late 90s, 2000s where they had email in all those kind of things, but those are we talking about since GEM started in 1976, just reconnecting with our alums so that we will be able to hear their story because GEM has a rich story. We have so many chapters that have been written that we want to hear those stories and put those stories in the GEM annals. And so we really do not want to lose this opportunity because there's a lot of our alums that weren't funded back in the 70s and 80s that now are retiring, you know?

43:25 DR YEP: Yeah.

43:26 DR HUGGANS: And the it did amazing things, but now are not doing those kind of things anymore. But they have this rich story that they can share with these students that can change their lives. Just like they'll have the same probably expression that I said. GEM changed my life hearing and seeing Ursula Burns back in 95' when she was a manager. When she came to my GEM conference, when I met her, she was not CEO at that time, but when I went back and looked at my old book, I said, Oh, that's Ms. Burns right there. But having the alarms come back and give not just monetarily because, yeah, we want the money, and that definitely helps us send more GEM fellows to school. But their experience, their their knowledge, their ability to have students see their success and also not just their success, but see their challenges in their journey. That is really that's what I think students really resonate with because they really want to see and hear. How did you get there? And we always have to tell students, you don't have to have brains run out the back of your head to get a Ph.D., but you do have to be dedicated to your craft. Yes, you do need to go and do the best that you can as you're going through this whole process that we call a Ph.D.. Because just because you got a Ph.D. and in my in my case, management of technology is the process of learning how to do research. And once you go through the process of how to conduct research, you can go off and research anything that you want. You can go research family. You because you got it because we got to go do that because we got to use our skills to go research our family. But but we need. But the thing that I really want to say about that is that getting the Ph.D. is a skill set that you will use lifelong. Exactly. And that's what we really want to equip. All of these students that are listening to our voices today, getting the skill set so you can go and do anything that you want to do in life.

45:44 DR YEP: Yes, absolutely. Look, I got to plug this. Listening to our voices or reading the transcripts or however you're receiving this podcast today. So for sure. And that's the thing. A lot of times you hear the saying, and it sounds kind of cliché, if you can't see it, you can't be it. And so it's about connecting people so that folks will be able to say, Oh, that person has a story similar to mine. That person has a background similar to mine, and they did it. And I would always tell my students when I was teaching and advising, take a look around, find somebody who's doing what you think you might be interested in doing, it's not saying that you're married to that idea, but somebody is doing something that looks interesting to you and just schedule a meeting and go have a conversation and ask questions, ask about their journey and how they got to where they got, and if they could go back to their 20 year old selves, would they do anything differently? And then it's not that you follow anybody else's path, but you can use what other people learned on their path to inform yours. And you can figure out, OK, this this might be for me, or this might not be for me, but I think is so important to make those connections. And so I hope the GEM alumni who are joining us for this episode will make sure to respond. If you see that email that comes to you and says, Hey, and make sure it's got that GEM fellowship dot org stamp on it, but hey, we're trying to connect with the alumni. They really are. I know that I've seen post out on LinkedIn and I've tried to share some things myself, even though, can I be honorary GEM? I'm just trying to get in.

47:36 DR HUGGANS: I'm just briefly. We got to figure it out. We're going to, you know, you know, you can send in a GEM application and we can we can send you back to grad school. 

47:47 DR YEP: I am not going back I am one and done. I know people will get multiple advanced degrees, but no, no, no. 

47:56 DR HUGGANS: We're gotta figure that out. We're going to figure that out.

47:59 DR YEP: Look, I have a little eight year old cousin. And whenever you offer her something that she's not interested in, oh, she's nine now. Whenever you offer her something she's not interested in, she says, mm nah, I'm good. So I'll say, mm nah, I'm good. 

48:17 DR HUGGANS: Oh, no, no, no. I resonate with what you just said. If I can't write a letter back and say, dear younger me there, there would be some things that I might say. But the one thing that I will say to my younger me that I'm proud to say that I did. I'm just a product of good listening and good mentoring. I had such great mentors that came in front of me. First one being my mom, my mom taught eighth grade. My mom taught eighth grade math for 41 years in a St. Louis public school. Wow. And she poured into all three sons that all studied engineering. And she said that we should know how to do math. I wish you would also stress me doing making sure my verbs and nouns a subject agreed. But I do. I do know how to do differentiation. I know how to integrate and all those kind of things. But she really poured into us math and science because she saw that that was the way the world was going. And then she got me as far as she could. Then I met so many other great mentors Dr. Freeman, Louis Payne and also Dr. Harvest Cawyer. Those were the three. Those three were the ones that were my trifecta. As I was going through undergrad, and if you take them, if you take the first name, the middle name and the last name, you'll get the letters TLC. So Terence Freeman. Louis Payne,as Louis was his middle name, so Louis Payne and then Dr. Harvest Cawyer. I was shown a lot of love as I was going through undergrad, and those were my mentors that really pulled me through. So if you didn't hear anything that we said today. Mentorship is so critical because as I was listening to you, that life is too short to make all of these mistakes.

50:22 DR YEP: So learn from others. Exactly.

50:29 DR HUGGANS: So I've had great mentors, and I still get it on today. And yeah, and you should never you should never think that you know enough. You should continue to continue to grow and keep. And then also, once you have made it to whatever level you're trying to make it to pivot and start to bring those along with you while you're going as well. So.

50:53 DR YEP: And I'll interject, I'll say you don't even wait till you get to a certain level. There are things you can do to mentor and support peers all along your journey. And so you don't have to wait till you arrive. Certainly, when you arrive, you want to not only be the one there, so I will say work with and make sure that I go back to. And I told you before I'm in the process of writing a book, and I've been stuck at this 85 percent finish point for a while. But but in there, I reference what we saw. And for those who saw the movie Hidden Figures and others who've read the book, but what we saw there when the, when the what we know as the machines, the computers came in to start taking over for the human computers that were there, which were the women, and there was a core group of black women who were there as human computers. And Dorothy Von she could very well have gone in and said, You know, I see this happening. I'm going to go figure it out. And it's it's about me, myself and I. But she didn't do that. That's right. She went in and said, Hey, ladies, look, this is happening. We're going to learn how to do this and we're going to work together so that she made sure that it wasn't just her who was going to have their job preserve or have a future with NASA. She made sure that everybody was able to have a role so they wouldn't be replaced. And I think we don't see enough of that. A lot of times we still see people where they're all in it for them are when they arrive. They don't make room for others. And part of it, I believe, comes from some selfishness. Part of it, I believe, comes from the way our systems are set up. We become so accustomed to there only being one, or with the tokenism are what people refer to now as tokenism, where I know if if I've looked at this history for the last 50 years and there's only been one black woman and I'm the one black woman, I'm gonna be a little hesitant to try to bring another black woman along because she might replace me because for the last 50 years, there's only one of us now, organizations are moving away from the tokenism to tokenism, so people can say as token. So they'll say, Oh, well, we got two women, but we're checking two boxes. But still is that same sort of thing that sort of hampers that. And so like I said, some of it has to do with us and making sure as individuals in one of our other guests, Javian Pearson, who was an undergraduate student at the time she was a guest but is now has graduated and is now working it now. But she said as so profoundly in her little young voice, I say little because she's a very petite lady, but there's nothing little about her in terms of her character and her stature in terms of everything about her. But in her small voice, she said, you know, a lot of professors, when you go to that first year class and they say, look to your left and look to your right and one of you won't be here when it's time for graduation. And she took it to another level, she said, If you look to your left and to your right, and I'm not here. And whenever you get to the end, something has gone wrong. Like you haven't you haven't done your part. You know, we haven't done our part to support each other if we just sit by and let others fall by the wayside.

54:53 DR HUGGANS: Absolutely.

54:54 DR YEP: So that that mentoring is not just that vertical mentoring. Very much so that peer mentoring and it's it's not dyadic. And there's a whole lot of research around that. It's not just you don't have a mentor. You have different mentors to fill different roles at different times. Your mentors might change over time because you change over time in your needs, change over time. So seek that network. And this is not just for students, this is for professionals. Seek that network of mentors that will feel all of those professional and personal and spiritual in all of the pieces that make you who you are. You need mentoring and you need support in those areas. Take care of the whole you.

55:42 DR HUGGANS:   OK, I love that, and I want to say this because I grew up, I did grow up playing sports. And so if you saw me, he would say he didn't play sports because I, my brothers, all play sports. They were very superior athletes. My oldest brother actually was drafted by the St. Louis Baseball Cardinals. 

56:02 DR YEP: I was about to ask If you played baseball, you strike me as a baseball player. Was that you?

56:08 DR HUGGANS: Baseball, football, basketball. You could live in my mom's house and not play sports.

56:12 DR YEP: So you had to be an engineer and you had to play sports. I never met your mom, but I love her already.

56:20 DR HUGGANS: Yeah. You had no, I'll say it like this. You had to do math and you had to play sports.

56:25 DR YEP: Oh, okay. So the math just led to the engineering.

56:31 DR HUGGANS: The reason I bring that up is because we didn't play single sports. Or solo sports, we played team sports. So I liken that when I went to college, I played at the highest level, so we won state championship football. When I was on my own, I was going to high school and we did very well in baseball and also in basketball. However, I took those same skills that I learned,in in sports I took that to education and I said, This engineering thing is going to really take me over and knock me out of here unless I do what I did in sports. And so I created my own team. So I mentioned all this. I'm bringing it back to what you said earlier about peer mentoring. So once I got all these different old tests and all of that and I would bring together my study groups and I would always tell them, you don't have to be the smartest, but you have to work hard all you got. And we showed up and we pushed each other and by us pushing each other, we all graduated on time with honors and all of that, and we were all, myself included. We were told that we wouldn't even make it there. We wouldn't make a difference. And we all graduated with honors. 

57:48 DR YEP: Wow. That's. See, that's what I'm talking about. You know, you have to have that you have to have that team like you putting it in terms of a team, there, so powerful.

57:59 DR HUGGANS: I call it engineering is a team sport. So if you hear that out there, that was me,

58:07 DR YEP: Noted. A tribute to Dr. Marcus Huggins.

58:13 DR YEP: Like, Yeah, I can't believe we're really out of time already. This time has gone so very quickly. But as we wrap up in this last minute, I want to just give you a chance to tell folks how they can connect with GEM if they're a student looking to apply for a GEM Fellowship or if they're an employer. Because I know y'all are recruiting more and more applicants and you said at the top that you have so many applicants, you need more employers and more universities to sponsor them. So how do folks connect with you in any of those roles?

58:49 DR HUGGANS: Thank you for that, and I really appreciate you spending this time and giving us a chance to just talk about GEM a little bit of time and talk about myself. But the easiest way to connect with GEM is to go to our website, which is w w w dot GEM Fellowship, F E L L O W S H IP, dot org. So if you go to our website, GEM Fellowship dot org would be the best way to go there. You can learn more about our organization. You can apply if you're a student, you can apply to become a university. You also can connect with us if you want to be an employer. We can walk you through the process of doing that as well. It is a very comprehensive website. And then if you don't get what you want from the website, give us a call seven zero three five six two three six four six and someone will answer your call and we will be able to walk you through the process that way as well. Either way, we look forward to helping everyone connect with the GEM family because that's what we consider. It's not just a company, it's a family.

01:00:00 DR YEP: Absolutely. Thank you. That's a perfect way to close up. So GEM Fellowship dot org will also put a link on our Engineering Change podcast website so that you can just connect directly from there. Thank you again so much for being here, and I'm looking forward to Arizona. I'm going to make it to Arizona this year. I'm just putting it out there right now.

01:00:23 DR HUGGANS: That's right. I'll see you in Arizona.

01:00:27 DR YEP: Take care.

01:00:28 DR HUGGANS: Take care. Take care. Bye bye.

01:00:30 ANNOUNCER: Thank you for joining us for Engineering Change. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe to our podcast and visit engineeringchangepodcast.com to connect with the people and resources mentioned on the show. Until next time, remember the best way to change engineering is by ENGINEERING CHANGE.