Ethnically Empowered Student Network - UoB

Happy Diwali❤️🪔 Wishing those who celebrate a beautiful Diwali, from the EESN 🧡

The EESN is back!…and we’re recruiting new student members!

This is just a short post to introduce us, tell you about our aims, where you can find us on socials and some of our plans that we have for this year.

We’re recruiting new members so if you’re interested in helping inclusion in our university for ethnic minorities, there’s no better place than joining our team. There is a sign up form in our link tree which you can check out, and apply today.

We’re looking forward to this year, so please keep an eye out on our socials for more!

- EESN team

Following up from our recent event- Diversity in Careers, we wanted to highlight a few standout quotes that our speakers mentioned! A huge thank you to our amazing speakers alongside everyone who came.💜 It was a great event and we look forward to seeing you all at our next event! :))

the power of geography-🌎

Yi-fu Tuan is a Chinese-American geographer known for the origin of humanistic geography. He's most famous for making "a sense of place" mire widely recognized as a key concept in human geography. This impacted the way in which researchers and scholars, still today, look at the relationship between people and their environments.

https://ls.wisc.edu/news/belonging-to-this-place-a-conversation-with-yi-fu-tuan/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi-Fu_Tuan
https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/space-and-place

The power of working to overcome racial barriers✊🏾

Charles Henry was a behavioral scientist and insect researcher. Throughout his academic career, he extensively researched insects, learning through trial and error. As a POC scientist, he argued the importance of education in combatting racism, especially during an era where there were very few POC in the field, and when there were, they would go unseen.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Henry-Turner

The power of mental health provision for people of colour🤝

Professor Reiko True is an internationally known Japanese American Psychologist who most famously established a program providing mental health services to disaster victims following a 1995 earthquake in Japan.

In particular, during the 60s, she saw the importance of providing mental health support and wanted to advance services for minorities communities, especially Asian Americans. She became an active researcher in the field as she felt empowered and inspired by the impact she was making on these communities, which often go without appropriate supervision, and where mental health services are largely taboo.

Her work and research continue to hold significance in understanding appropriate m.h provision for minority communities and understanding why they have certain attitudes. Her influence will go on as a pioneer in mental health, whose work is increasingly essential in a time where change is urgently needed in the field.

www.apa.org/pi/oema/resources/ethnicity-health/psychologists/true
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiko_True

The power of determination from ethnic prejudice💜🏊🏼‍♀️

Vicki Manalo Draves' story is one of determination through prejudice and struggle. Her dreams of diving were frowned upon for being of mixed heritage- her mother was English, and her father was Filipino. With the background of 1940s San Francisco, segregation was so prominent that after people of colour swam in a public pool (notably, for one day a month as opposed to white people’s open access at all times), the pool had to be cleaned and drained from fears of mixing.

She sustained a successful diving career, which at her peak, she achieved a diving's golden double at the Olympics- the first woman in history to do so, and the first being a woman of colour. She eventually married her diving coach, and set a legacy for future divers, by setting up a training programme for young swimmers and divers.

The power of female pioneering👩🏾‍🔬🧪
Marie M. Daly was a prominent female pioneer in the field of biosciences and a male-dominated space, as she was the first ever Black American woman to receive a PhD in Chemistry. Her work largely covered researching the body’s chemicals through digestion, alongside looking at diet as a mediator for health, a significant research point especially during her era before the rising awareness of diets and food management. Marie M. Daly was a leading pioneer and has inspired female chemists and bioscientists to be innovative and resilient, the path she has paved teaches many lessons for young poc individuals who are wanting to go into chemistry and biosciences.

The power of geography🗺

Milton Santos was widely considered the father of critical geography, and was a key pioneer in researching the field of research particularly in Brazil. This including urban development in developing countries, where he gave valuable insight from his own lived experience. Let’s celebrate this pioneer and the path he has paved.💜

The power of specialism and geodynamics💜

Professor Sun-Lin Chung is a researcher focusing on Chemical Geodynamics. He works in the department IES (Earth Sciences) Academia Sinica & Geosciences NTU at the National Taiwan University.

He specialises in three key areas, which are Geosciences, Igneous Petrogenesis (study of igneous rocks formed by magma) and Asian Magmatism & Tectonics (magma and tectonics in Asia) and has been cited over 30,000 times. This is very impressive considering the depth and limited scope in this area. One of his biggest awards was his award for the World Academy of Sciences 2014 prize in Earth Sciences.

The power of determination⚛️💜-
“His brilliance overshadowed the racial injustice that pursued him." (Madden, 2021)
"Forgotten genius" (Nova, 2007)

Dr. Percy Lavon Julian was a Black American researcher, chemist, self-made millionaire and civil rights pioneer. He's paved the way for modern medicine, and was best known for the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs such as cortisone, steroids and birth control pills. He also found a way to mass produce a drug used to treat glaucoma.

Though, despite his great achievements, his path proved to one one of struggle. As the grandson of former slaves, he had to fight and endure discrimination and prejudice as a Black Scientist, especially in the context of 1930s America. As there was no high school for Black students, he'd stay behind for after school class just so he could catch up with his white counterparts.

His determination continued when graduating with a first class degree, was a Chemistry instructor at a Black college and received his PhD. Although he also had to battle through public scrutiny and he struggled to find respect from them. His home was set on fire by an arsonist Thanksgiving 1950, and dynamite was thrown at his home a year later.

However, that's not to forget his impressive achievements. He was one one of the first African Americans recognised by the National Academy of Sciences, authored/co-authored 160+ publications, and became one of the first Black millionaires in the 60s.

Dr. Julian's story is one unlike any pioneer- one of great strength, devotion and resilience. He encapsulates the power of determination.

Reference to quote-
(Madden, 2021) https://www.manisteenews.com/local-news/article/HONORING-BLACK-HISTORY-MONTH-Percy-Julian-15954658.php

(Nova, 2007) https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/forgotten-genius/