“Most importantly, I gained hope,” Ivonne Muganyizi ’15 said of her experience at the New England Fall Zone Conference of the National Society for Black Engineers held in Smith-Buonnano Hall Saturday.
The conference, organized by the Brown NSBE chapter, brought together college and high school students from New England with the goal of fostering important skills for under-represented minorities in science, technology, engineering and math.
In the opening keynote speech, Oscar Groomes ’82 P’15, former president and CEO of GE Rail Services and current consultant with Groomes Business Solutions, discussed his professional path through both corporate and private equity businesses and offered five steps for success.
“Success is not an accident,” Groomes said. “All the winners are probably sitting in the front row — it’s not like church. … (It’s) already a choice you make.” Before introducing Groomes, New England Zone Chair and Region I Public Relations Chair Trae Jennette, a senior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, had welcomed and asked the audience of about 60, dispersed in Smitty-B 106, to fill in the front rows, but no one moved.
Interactive with the audience at times, shaking hands and covering all his floor space, Groomes presented the first four of his five steps for success at the beginning of his talk: “set goals,” “generate good choices,” “exceed expectations” and “hang around winners.” Groomes left the fifth step — “maintain integrity” — until the end of his speech and concluded by emphasizing this step’s particular importance.
In order not to derail, “as a minority, you need to continue to validate yourself,” especially African-Americans and women, Groomes said. Though someone with privilege may only have to prove himself once, Groomes said, continually proving oneself makes a person stronger. Rules are quickly enforced when someone in a minority makes a mistake, he added. “Don’t worry about whether it’s fair or not. Maintain integrity.”
The conference aimed to help students take advantage of academic resources, develop career and leadership skills and build professional and social relationships.
Precollege and college students spent the full day in break-out sessions of their choosing, ranging from discussion groups such as “Women in the Workplace” or “Being My Brother’s Keeper” to opportunities for individual feedback through one-on-one resume coaching and an elevator pitch competition.
Each of the five judges for the elevator pitch competition offered personal feedback to each of the 10 pitch participants on both content and style, including suggestions for quick physical relaxation techniques to beat pre-interview jitters. Professor of Engineering Christopher Rose offered feedback as well, though not as a judge. He compared Muhammad Ali’s confidence to Joe Lewis’ humility, adding, “I like a little bit of punch.” Kenya Wright ’15 won the overall competition and a T-shirt for the best pitch.
Eight high school students also participated in the conference. In the closing session, Jennette gave them time to ask questions to the entire room of college students and encouraged everyone to make use of the networking event immediately afterward. Dean of Engineering Lawrence Larson told the audience he hopes to see the conference back at Brown next year.
Overall, seeing the number of people in the community was an encouraging experience, said Annabel Lemma ’16.
The event was the first such conference for Bella Okiddy ’15, who said she enjoyed connecting with students from other communities and felt the conference opened her eyes to life outside of Brown engineering. She said she intends to attend more conferences in the future, especially to network.
NSBE Chapter Coordinator Johnathan Davis ’16 and NSBE Chapter President Godwin Tsado ’16 said they look forward to continued fostering of the community and to hosting future events. Davis said the planning of the event largely adhered to the guidelines of the national organization, and that in the future they hope to plan more Brown-focused events with more speakers from Brown. Still, Davis said he felt very rewarded seeing the conference come together.
“Strategizing behind all this … was really exciting for me because as an engineer, your job is to problem-solve,” Tsado said, adding that “strategizing really made you put your mind to work in a different way than you do in your engineering classes, which is really, really exciting for me — it was actually kind of fun.”
At times, the planning process was challenging and stressful, Davis added, but the organizers said hosting the event brought the chapter closer together.
Davis said he has been especially excited to see an increase in the number of younger students in the chapter. Thirty-five people attended the chapter’s first meeting this semester, a growth from meetings of only five people when the chapter restarted last year.
The conference opened and closed with a back-and-forth chant between Jennette and the audience that perhaps epitomized the enthusiasm of the day. When Jennette yelled “more,” the audience responded “fire.”
“We’re the hottest region,” Davis said, laughing. “People get really into it.”
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