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From Imposter Syndrome to Empowerment: Strategies to Encourage HBCU Student Participation in International Fellowships

Jun 24, 2020 | Articles

Posted: Wednesday, June 24, 2020
By: Stephanie Tilley – Prairie View A&M University
Lily Lopez-McGee – Howard University

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have a longstanding legacy of providing access to higher education for students from communities traditionally excluded from postsecondary education. The student demographics at most HBCUs include students from first-generation backgrounds, immigrant and racial minority communities, and students with high financial need; student populations that are often minoritized in other institutional contexts. HBCUs, in short, serve student populations typically underserved in areas such as education abroad and international fellowship awards, but may not be positioned to access these opportunities. This article outlines the unique circumstances HBCU students face in accessing international opportunities, and offers asset-based advising and programming strategies to help students attending HBCUs envision themselves in internationally focused programming.

To date, national data on the frequency in which HBCU students are awarded international fellowships is not available. However, HBCU student participation in education abroad can help offer an approximation of what participation might be in international fellowships. For example, in reviewing the profiles of recent awardees of some of the most recognized international fellowship programs (e.g., Fulbright Fellowship, Rhodes Scholarship), it is clear that many successful candidates engage in international experiences such as education abroad and international internships. If education abroad data, then, offer an indication of participation in international fellowship, 2014-2015 data would demonstrate that only 3.4% of students attending HBCUs engaged in education abroad programming (Redden, 2018). The numbers, while sobering, also suggest an incredible area of opportunity to engage more HBCU students in internationally focused fellowship and scholarship programs.

Students at HBCUs, in many cases, have strong networks of support that may not be aligned to help them access education abroad and international opportunities (e.g., Salisbury, Umbach, Paulsen, and Pascarella, 2009; Yosso, 2005). As noted earlier, engaging in international opportunities can position students to access international fellowships and scholarships; not having networks that can support them in these endeavors can make it difficult for HBCU students to see themselves as successful candidates to such awards. Too often, students may not visualize themselves as the right candidate or question their qualifications for such opportunities, exhibiting indications of imposter syndrome that staff and faculty may be well positioned to help them overcome.

Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome explains the feeling of doubting one’s accomplishments and credibility (Parkman, 2016). This feeling is characterized by viewing oneself as an unqualified fraud who is undeserving of accolades especially in comparison to others. Informal and formal data infer that many students attending an HBCU experience imposter syndrome specifically regarding personal and professional development opportunities. Within an international fellowship and scholarship context, HBCU faculty and staff have concluded HBCU students may hesitate to apply and may experience unique barriers in accessing these opportunities. It is critical that international educators empower our HBCU students to view themselves as capable and deserving candidates with unique and valuable perspectives. It is crucial that HBCU students visualize themselves as recipients of international fellowships and scholarships because through these opportunities students can evaluate and strengthen their world view as they receive and integrate new information through their experiences. International fellowships and scholarships can offer new experiences and exploration that can help students grow personally and connect more deeply with others. As a result, it is important that HBCU students feel grounded in their sense of self so they can feel confident in the strengths they bring to such opportunities.

International educators play an integral role in helping HBCU students better understand why they are well positioned to be successful in their applications for international fellowships and scholarships. Through various strength based strategies, specifically advising and programming, international educators can empower HBCU students to overcome feelings of inadequacy. Advising within a collegiate setting is the process of giving insight and direction to students in academic, career, and personal matters. There are various approaches to advising; however, it is important to use approaches that are complementary and suitable for HBCU student populations. As noted earlier, HBCU student demographics include racial minorities, first generation students, and/or students who demonstrate high financial need. Such diverse demographics involve more personable interaction and higher engaging advising (Williams, Glenn, and Wide, 2008).

Nurtured Advising

It has been inferred that an effective advising strategy within the HBCU community is nurtured advising (Williams, Glenn, and Wider, 2008). Nurtured advising involves developing a personable relationship between the advisor and the student in a manner that resembles a family dynamic; this type of advising creates a strong sense of community by using teaching moments and life lessons to support the student. This form of advising requires a more active and engaged interaction with the student. Furthermore, an aspect of nurtured advising entails street advising, which describes nurtured advising extending beyond a formal setting and occurring in various manners. This form of advising can happen in individual conversation or informal settings such as the cafeteria or in the hallway. The essence of nurtured advising is building connection and care. This approach builds trust with HBCU students which solidifies the students’ belief that their advisor is invested in their best interests. Therefore, this form of advising can be a useful model to help increase HBCU student participation in international fellowships and scholarships.

Advising Strategies

In addition to nurtured advising, there are strategies to encourage HBCU student interest and participation in global awards. An important advising strategy is to align student qualifications and interests with the appropriate fellowship opportunity. It is important to identify fellowships that students are eligible for which are predicated on various factors such as classification and language proficiency. An understanding of the opportunities that students are eligible for allows advisors to guide and direct student expectations. Furthermore, it allows advisors to merge student eligibility with student interests; advisors are able to consider how the students’ personal goals align with the opportunity and ultimately pair the student with the most suitable fellowship opportunities. Additionally, advisors should maintain an active presence throughout the students’ application fellowship process. Advisors can do this through goal setting activities and regular check ins. The essence of establishing an active fellowship advising presence with students is consistency. Through consistent actions, HBCU students begin to recognize and appreciate their own strengths and view the advisor as a part of their support network (Williams, Glenn, and Widers, 2008). This sense of security fosters student empowerment and success.

Integrating Support Systems

Applying for a nationally or internationally competitive fellowships or scholarships can be an intimidating process. Two key strategies to help make the process more accessible include building strong partnerships between HBCU staff and faculty and fellowship/scholarship staff that emphasize student awareness and developing materials that highlight the stories that are relatable to students attending HBCUs.

Developing Meaningful Alliances

Fellowship and scholarship providers are positioned to support staff and faculty who work closely with HBCU students. However, cultivating intentional alliances is not simply about hosting an informational session with interested students. It involves developing a rapport with HBCU campus stakeholders that includes regular communication with staff and faculty, providing easy to share materials that are relevant to HBCU students (e.g., videos, alumni profiles), and offering support to staff and faculty that can make the information easier for students to access. Intentional partnerships involve time and involvement in the same way that nurtured advising cultivates relationships of trust between students and advisors. Similarly, fellowship and scholarship providers can identify campus stakeholders with whom they can develop longer-term communication that makes their opportunities more accessible to students on HBCU campuses.

Highlighting HBCU Fellows Alumni

Once an intentional partnership is developed, providers should seek to build resources and materials that help empower students to see themselves in such opportunities. These strategies help center students’ strengths and assets rather than emphasizing barriers. This can include highlighting the stories and accomplishments of fellows and alumni from HBCUs, offering rich narratives (e.g., videos, digital stories, printed material) that demonstrate the diverse experiences of students attending HBCUs. Another approach is to support existing initiatives HBCUs have started that contribute such efforts rather than recreating new initiatives. Doing this can help amplify the work of HBCU colleagues and simultaneously bring information about fellowship/scholarship programs to more students. While these are but two examples of strategies that HBCUs and fellowship/scholarship programs can employ, meeting students where they are and working with the fellowship programs to tailor presentations to student experiences are particularly valuable.

Concluding Summary

International educators have a direct influence and impact on student development and success. Therefore, it is imperative that international educators provide sufficient support to increase HBCU student participation in various global fellowship and scholarship opportunities. HBCU students can view themselves as successful applicants for these opportunities through effective support systems, advising and programming that leverage asset based strategies. HBCU students possess rich experiences and backgrounds that will compliment and contribute to any international fellowship and scholarship they partake in. Therefore, as international educators, it is our duty to ensure this student population is well supported and encouraged to engage in these enriching opportunities.

Multicultural Student Narratives on Racial Identity and Social Justice

Feb 3, 2020 | Articles, Education Abroad, Support & Advising

Multicultural Student Narratives from Abroad on Racial Identity and Social Justice Orientation: Implications for Practice

Posted: Monday, February 3, 2020  
By: Breanne Tcheng, Ed.D. – University of California, Berkeley

This article shares excerpts from a qualitative study which sought to understand how a student’s racial identity shapes their experience in a K-12 international service-learning program in the Dominican Republic. More specifically, the study examined how the experience shaped students’ own ideas and actions around race, belonging, and difference (Tcheng, 2018). The student narratives and findings have implications that can be applied more broadly to assist advisors and educators as they prepare students of color for their time abroad. Recommendations include incorporating intentional discussions centered around race, power, and privilege into pre-departure workshops and orientations.

The research and findings highlighted here are centered around and drawn from the following students’ lived experiences and narratives:

Jake is a 19-year old, low-income student from Hayward, California. He is a confident and unapologetically bold Chicano male who identifies as LGBT. Jake’s personality flourishes when he speaks in Spanish, as he proudly proclaimed, “I don’t care. I’m doing me.” In doing so, he finds ways to push against traditionally masculine ideas of “machismo” and express himself through fashion. He is currently studying at CSU East Bay and working part-time.

Erika is an 18-year old, low-income student from Hayward, California. She is optimistic, curious, and grounded. As a Nigerian-American, Erika understands that at a time in her life when teenagers are trying to figure out who they are, she also must be cognizant of how she is perceived as a Black female. She explains, “[Being Black] just makes me really aware of people’s perceptions, and just how prejudices and every type of judgment [work], and how I’m supposed to navigate that, and still be myself.” Erika found that the trip experience allowed her to get to know others for who they truly were, which consequently allowed her to step into a space where she could also let her true self shine as well.

Leila is an 18-year old, upper-income art student from Oakland, California who is driven and confident. Growing up in a family of successful lawyers, she is no stranger to the extra effort that is required of a young, Black, female to make it in this world. “There’s not enough room to make mistakes,” she shares—partly because this is her reality, and partly because she has seen negative consequences play out in unjust ways for her friends. As a result, she was excited to share her unique experiences as a Black female participant, has joined a diversity task force at her school, and has decided to attend Spelman College, a prestigious women’s HBCU, in the fall.

For all three students, personal racial identity and the ability to access their community’s cultural wealth allowed them to draw deeper meaning from their experiences in the Dominican Republic in ways that were distinctly different than their White counterparts. When removed from the social and political context of the United States, these students could reflect on their own racial identity in relation to others in new ways.

Navigating multicultural contexts, however, was not a new experience for these students of color. Each student spoke about code switching, depending on if they were at school with friends, with family, or in a professional setting. This proved to be a source of cultural capital for many students to support their navigation of Dominican contexts abroad. Jake, in particular, felt like he could be more of his full self when he accessed his linguistic capital. “When I speak Spanish, I’m more confident. I’m more fun. I’m more friendly”; whereas he says he is much shyer when he speaks English. Jake spoke specifically to the advantage he felt when interacting with local Dominicans, and to the instantaneous connections he formed as a result. They would often spend time teaching each other different slang phrases, or making fun of how fast Jake could speak Spanish. “But at the end of the day we would just crack jokes,” he explained. “It felt like family again or like a good friend.”

Because of this cultural connection, Jake was also able to see himself in the local Dominican youth. This has had a profound impact on the way he now chooses to embrace and express his identity through fashion. Growing up, Jake shared that he often went to the rodeo with his family. Men dressed a certain way there, and were machismo or strong and masculine. Being in the DR surrounded by people that he identified with however, challenged his definition of Chicano machismo identity. He noted that “[Dominican males] are “not scared of fashion.” And “after I came back from the Dominican [Republic], I had actually just stopped caring. I really don’t care with the machismo look with baggy pants.” This experience and reflection – although seemingly minor – allowed Jake to feel a sense of empowerment and liberation through his own self-expression. It shifted his perspective on what masculinity looks like, and can be. The experience built Jake’s confidence in the way that he presents himself and in the way that he carries himself in the world.

Erika was surprised at how easily she could adapt to a foreign culture abroad and felt a strong sense of empowerment as a result. In particular, Erika shared her experience of visiting a batey – a Haitian settlement near the sugar cane fields. There, the students had an opportunity to share a meal with the community and learn about their lives, the challenges they face, and their dreams for the future. Although the entire day’s activities w open students’ eyes to some of the gross human rights and global injustices in the DR, this was not what was most profound for Erika. At the end of the day, she recalled, “We were walking, and it was just the whole group and this little girl she runs out from her house and she points at me. She’s all like, “Mira la negra.” [Look at the Black girl] …and she was just like a little Black girl, too. It just made me think of how [many] other service trips especially to Black communities globally [exist]… and how [often] people must never see themselves [in the volunteers]. Then I guess, when she saw me, she saw herself as well, which really touched me. I was all like, ‘Yeah, that’s me.”
This brief exchange was a powerful experience for Erika because it affirmed her racial identity. She went on to explain, “I was so surprised at how, especially coming from [the U.S.], and just really escaping the cultural paranoia that sometimes I would have, and how easily I was able to take things into a different context, and I didn’t realize that that’s also what I did.” This allowed Erika to feel more confident about moving away for college – and even beyond as she moves through life. “I liked how easily I was able to adapt,” she reflected proudly.

Leila had a similar experience identifying with the Haitians she met on her trip. “When I went to the batey and it was like people that looked like me, and I was understanding what they were saying and it was something that I could relate to. Like knowing you need something and you don’t have it and you don’t know where to get it. It’s so hard.” Growing up in a family of successful lawyers, Leila knew she had to use her privilege to make a difference. She felt connected to their struggle, felt the weight of shared systemic oppression, and was inspired to resist by doing and achieving more.

Tired of having to explain her experiences to her White teachers at school, she is hopeful and has goals for her future. Thinking about her freshman year at Spelman, she proclaims, “I think that when you go to a college where they’ve been teaching black kids, somebody’s already paved the way for me. I just want to learn.” She attributes her success to her family as role models. “I’m lucky…I feel like I’m not always in a disadvantaged situation because of my race. I’ve seen people who look like me do well.” And there was no question in her mind that this was just the beginning. She plans to be a doctor: “I want to be a surgeon, so I know that like my main goal is to return to the Dominican Republic, specifically San Juan, and do something with my profession there, because that was like a moment where I was like, ‘I can’t leave and not think about this anymore.”

For these students, their relationships with local Dominican and Haitian youth engendered self-reflexivity in relation to their own race, belonging, and difference. These exchanges—and the subsequent sense of empowerment they felt—allowed them to develop deep ties to their roots, or feel more appreciative and connected to their American identity in ways that were consistent with the literature for heritage seeking students (Szekely, 1998; Tsantir, 2005). More specifically, every student spoke to moments of micro-exchange, mostly through unstructured dialogue with others, that impacted them most profoundly. In the Dominican Republic, discrimination is based heavily on skin tone and less on ethnic heritage, as in the United States. Thus, for these students of color, their complexion combined with their U.S. citizenship afforded them contextualized privilege that allowed for deeper reflections on the power that racial identity has in different parts of the world.

Implications for Practice
These narratives add complexity to our work with students of color, urging us to consider both the participant’s racial identity and the social context abroad in our approach to preparation and learning. As non-traditional learning abroad continues to be reinforced by White normative culture, discussions that both challenge these norms and center around the identities and needs of students of color are needed.

Further, in a global context, anti-Blackness is deeply rooted in the colonial legacies of race and White supremacy worldwide. It seems illogical, therefore, that any program designed to serve students of color abroad neglects to address and unpack Whiteness as a discourse of power, both locally and globally. Whether they acknowledge or are aware of it, students and their peers have a relationship to Whiteness and, by extension, to these systems of power. Global immersion programs need intentional dialogue that not only brings awareness to these oppressive powers but also addresses the role that race and U.S. politics play in creating global inequities. For U.S. students of color to fully actualize the benefits of an international immersion experience, preparatory workshops and discussions need to incorporate culturally relevant pedagogy that promotes critical dialogue in which students can unpack and challenge the global dominance of Whiteness. This nuanced understanding and perspective can help students connect how they experience race in the U.S. with how they may experience race abroad, thereby developing a more complex understanding of their own racial identity, power, and privilege.

Szekely, B. B. (1998). Seeking heritage in study abroad. In T. Davis (Ed), Open Doors on the Web. New York: Institute of International Education. Retrieved November 10, 2018 from http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1028315307299417

Tsantir, S. B., &; Titus, B. J. (2005). Heritage seeking and education abroad: A case study. IIE Networker Magazine: Diversity in International Education.

Wing Tcheng, Breanne, “Building Bridges Across Difference Through International Summer Immersion Programs: A Narrative Inquiry in Racial Identity and Social Justice Orientation” (2018). Doctoral Dissertations. 479. https://repository.usfca.edu/diss/479