0:03

Welcome to the Cohort Sisters podcast, where we give voice to the stories, struggles and successes of Black women and non-binary folks with doctoral degrees.

0:13

I'm your host, dr John McCollough, and joining us today is Dr Jasmine C Jackson, an assistant professor at Texas Christian University, who earned her PhD in political science from Purdue University.

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She's all about American politics, political behavior, women and Black politics.

0:32

Her research tackles big questions about race knowledge and politics in America and looks into how we measure political knowledge and how it affects the gap between Black and White folks in politics.

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Dr Jackson has won major awards like the Purdue Liberal Arts Distinguished Dissertation and the George Washington Carver Fellowship, and she's got the inside scoop on what's cooking in American politics today, which is a mess.

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So I'm really interested to get your insight.

1:04

Let's jump right in and welcome to the Cohort Sisters podcast, dr Jasmine C Jackson.

1:12

Yeah, so I am Dr Jasmine C Jackson.

1:15

I am I don't know. We just say I'm from the South because I have lived in various Southern states.

1:20

I've grown up in various Southern states. I'm not a military rat.

1:24

My dad's job just kind of dragged us all over the place.

1:27

So I know I'm just, like I said, say, the South.

1:31

When I am not stressed out about American politics, I enjoy cooking, shopping, reading for leisure not research and sleeping that's a favorite pastime, of course, when I was an undergrad I actually that's when I began my I began to get into the field of political science.

1:52

I first wanted to be a lawyer, I wanted to do corporate law, and in my first semester at Jackson State University I had the opportunity of working with a political science professor.

2:05

He took over my one of my honors courses and he was doing this research about colorism and hair texture and how it affects the public's perception of black political candidates.

2:20

And he was like I am coming up with this finding and I don't understand it.

2:24

I don't even know how we got to talking about it, but I don't understand it.

2:27

It's not making sense to me. And so I helped him interpret his finding, or helped him get like you know, kind of have a new age kind of spin on his finding.

2:38

And he was like, all right, you're in, you're on the research team.

2:42

And I was like, wait a second, what are you talking about?

2:45

What research? What is the research team?

2:48

What is political science research involved, and it's been I'm going to go get a PhD and be a professor ever since that is such a good story, wow.

2:58

Okay, so you do this project with this professor and then all of a sudden, like when did it click for you that you wanted to do what he does and be a professor?

3:10

And then, once you decided to be a professor, what were some of the steps that you took to prepare yourself to be a strong applicant for grad school?

3:18

Okay. So, trying to put this in a seamless stream of thought, really so I had no idea.

3:27

I am a first-year PhD, so I had no idea what it entailed of getting a PhD and what it meant to get a PhD.

3:35

And so when I was exposed to political science research especially research on colorism and hair texture, you know and knowing that that was a field in political science that I could then go in and study, right, I was going to go.

3:50

I actually met my PhD advisor my first semester in undergrad at Jackson State.

3:55

She barely remembers the interaction, but she was invited to a talk at Jackson State and I was there.

4:02

It was a home, it was homecoming, friday 8am, it was very few of us there.

4:07

So once I you know her work, coupled with the work of my undergrad advisor, and talking to him and him really pushing me to apply to different research opportunities, I was like I want to do this.

4:24

I think this is something I want to do Now, as far as you know, realizing I wanted to be a professor.

4:31

I come from a long line of educators, a long line of educators.

4:34

I am a fourth generation Jackson State alumni, and so my grandfather went to Jackson State when he was 16 years old and left Jackson State and went to Missouri to help integrate the schools in a small town in Missouri, Charleston, missouri and so education was always important, it was always non-negotiable in my family and our household.

4:59

So it wasn't a matter of preparation, I was already in it.

5:04

So it wasn't, you know, it was just a matter of, like I said, connecting the dots and recognizing that this is a path that was always open to me, even if I didn't know it.

5:14

You know, I was always. I'm the oldest, I'm the oldest sibling, so I am third parent, I am the teacher of life.

5:21

Lessons that you know, mom and dad feel like will come, will be better given by you, the third parent, the oldest.

5:29

So teaching came naturally, and so it really was.

5:33

Just in regards to preparing for to be a strong applicant, it was really just getting the, getting more research experience and carving out my own research question and other, because, other than that, like I said, the GPA was there, the drive was there, the you know understanding, the education was important.

5:54

All of that was already there. So it's just a matter of what do I want to study?

5:58

Do I want to continue down this path of Black politics, identity politics, candid perception, that sort of thing or is there something else that I'm interested in?

6:10

So and so what led you to? I'm curious one, because we're in the process right now.

6:15

We're working very closely with doctoral applicants and so something that's been coming up for people in our cohort this programming is some people like will study something in undergrad or their master's program, but like want to go and they have a completely different research idea for their PhD.

6:32

So I'm curious, like what were some of, what was your thought process, as you were, you know, looking at programs and thinking about you know, what do I want to study?

6:41

Do I want to continue along the same line of research I've been doing, or do I want to explore some different questions?

6:46

Were there different questions for you then? And then what did you ultimately end up doing your dissertation?

6:51

on Right. So Well one.

6:57

They never made me feel like I had to pick in regards to what I wanted to study, but I did so I still, even though I haven't done it in a while, I still do work in regards to, like, perception of black folks.

7:14

You know, the politicization of the black body and the longstanding history of the politicization of our body.

7:21

It's work that I'm getting back into but I was never pushed to pick what it was.

7:26

That kind of at least led me, as I was applying down the road of more so political knowledge and political socialization was I had the language to explain that in a way that was acceptable to political scientists, and I did not have the language to explain the more so of.

7:49

Oh, I studied, you know, skin color and hair and because to me that's, you know, layman's terms, that's what it is and they're like, oh, okay, and you know, because I saw, I had the wonderful privilege of being a part of the Ralph Bunch summer Institute at Duke University under the direction of Dr Paul McClain, and from there we are.

8:10

It is for black and brown folks who aspire to have PhDs in political science.

8:15

We are, you know, it's like a six to eight week boot camp, essentially of like mini grad school.

8:22

You go to class and you create an original research project.

8:25

There I was exposed to research about political knowledge and the overall consensus was black people don't know anything about politics, particularly black women being at the bottom of the totem pole.

8:35

And I said this is absolutely horseshit.

8:37

I don't believe any of this. And so now I found my thing, because something is wrong here.

8:42

And when I looked and I went to go look into the phenomenon that I knew was black political knowledge or what black people knew about politics, there was nothing and I was like, okay, so this is my thing, because apparently no one else is studying this and you're always told oh, you're not the first person to study, I am, I'm one of the first, I am one of the first people in this lane.

9:02

It is me and one other person in this lane.

9:05

We know each other, we are both.

9:08

We both went to the Ralph Bunch summer Institute and we're different years, shockingly, where we're not in the same cohort.

9:14

So because I had the language to explain that and that seemed more acceptable, that seemed more acceptable at the time, especially as I was getting prepared to go into grad school, being able to meet more academics, more PhDs in political science.

9:33

That got the reaction of, oh wow, that's such a great question, yes, we need to know these things, whereas of you know saying that I want to study, study, study skin color and hair, and rather than say there were ways to package that I just didn't have the academic language at 21, 20, to say that, right, so that's really what it was.

9:57

That's what kind of pushed me more so in that direction.

9:59

Ultimately, when I got to Purdue and it was time for me to choose my dissertation topic, I actually did almost switch back to media and candid perception.

10:10

That's what my comprehensive paper was on was on the bias media coverage of black women political candidates, especially opposed to their white male counterparts if they're running against a white man.

10:22

So I was like oh well, you know, this is back to my roots, let's do this.

10:27

And my dissertation advisor was like mm-mm, I feel like you're settling.

10:32

I feel like you're marrying the safe man and not the man you love.

10:35

She's like. So you, she was like I'm going to tell you as a what is this analogy?

10:39

The analogy was. The analogy was she was like I feel like you're trying to marry the man and everybody wants you to marry.

10:45

But you got somebody you really love but you're scared to marry him.

10:49

I love that.

10:50

I love that your advisor like put it that way.

10:55

She is my academic mama. That's what. That's how we describe our relationship.

10:59

She is my academic mama and my academic mama she's as your academic mama.

11:03

I'm going to tell you to go love that man that you really love, not the one we all want you to love, because she does.

11:09

She does, you know, candid perception.

11:12

She does identity politics.

11:14

You know black folks, hair bodies, like that.

11:18

She's like as my student, that makes sense.

11:20

She was like I can. She's like, of course, nobody is going to push back on you know you coming out as my student with this particular topic.

11:29

She was like but since the day that I recall meeting you, which was that she was also arrived at a bunch of some institute scholar, she was like you have only talked about political knowledge.

11:38

That has been the thing. She was like yes, I know you studied these other things because you work with me.

11:42

She's like but the your question, the question that you are most passionate about right now, is black folks knowledge, black folks, political knowledge.

11:50

She's like so I'm going to push you to do that. And I was like okay, you're right, let's go do it.

11:56

Yes, I absolutely love that.

11:59

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that your mentor was a black woman.

12:05

Is that a safe?

12:06

decision yes.

12:08

Fantastic. Can you talk a little bit more about the joys and the privileges and, as well, if there are any nuances that you want to share about having a black woman as your primary advisor as you're going through a doctoral program?

12:26

It is. It was a blessing, it was an absolute blessing and it, it said, a joy, a privilege.

12:32

I think the nuance is on the other side.

12:37

Or being, you know, a PhD student, you don't understand the mental gymnastics or the the low that is on black women, faculty members, and so that may cause you to be critical at times, but you can't, because when you get to get to their you know particular point, you're like, wow, this is all of the things that my advisor was dealing with, while also putting out my fires, wiping away my tears, and her world was also on fire, right?

13:12

So, um, I think that's the nuance.

13:15

The nuance is understanding that the academy did not love us both, you know like the academy was not made for both of us, and that that created that created unique circumstances that I was not privy to at the time.

13:31

You know, probably still I'm still I'm not tenured yet, so probably still not privy to some some of those you know hurdles.

13:38

But to just be gracious, to be gracious to yourself and to your advisor, because y'all both going through it, whether you know it or not, you're both going through it.

13:48

Yeah, I am so glad that you shared that perspective, because I didn't have that experience.

13:55

Um always yearn for that experience, but didn't really think about the, the nuance that you mentioned.

14:02

You know, if just the awareness, or rather the lack of awareness, of the strain that you're if you end up having an advisor who's any kind of marginalized, historically underrepresented- person in the academy, like when they take a little bit longer to get back to you, like it's cause, like there are, as you said, like there are, they are really dealing with some things, um, and you're so right, like we don't really know that until we're them and we're on the other side and we're now the ones you know having students.

14:32

Um, I'll share a really personal story. So I, a student, asked me for a letter of recommendation recently and I did not submit it on time and I felt terrible.

14:43

Okay, but as a person of color, in an apartment where I'm the only one who looks like me, 15 students also asked me to submit letters of recommendation for them.

14:56

this semester, and I know for a fact my white male colleagues do not have 15 students asking them to write them letters to get into med school and law school and whatnot.

15:05

So yes, I think that's both reaffirming to hear, I think for current doctoral students, but I also needed to hear that for myself.

15:14

I have to tell myself that too. So I am the only person in my department that looks like me and I had a.

15:22

There was a student who attended our institution and she's now trying to figure out whether or not she wants to have a PhD in.

15:28

We wanted to start meeting regularly and I completely dropped the ball twice on meeting, like I had to shift things around and I felt absolutely terrible and I think that me especially being absent twice negatively affected our relationship.

15:47

But I had to give myself grace because, like one of those times I was having a maintenance emergency in my apartment, like I forgot everything because the freaking smoke alone wouldn't stop and I know it seemed small but I couldn't sleep.

15:59

I didn't sleep all night Like I was a zombie.

16:01

You know I was a zombie the whole day and so I.

16:04

You know you do your best, but you have to recognize that you have a different workload and you know you have to forgive yourself and be gracious and I have tried to, you know, definitely reach out to that student, you know, on different occasions and apologize, but after a while I was just like, okay, well, you know, maybe we aren't just a match because, like I would, the same way they always talk about fit.

16:29

Fit goes both ways. I do need somebody that's going to understand like I can be a little spacey at times, or or I do have a and not spacey but preoccupied, you know I could be.

16:39

Cause life, life's all the time we do not have the privileges of our colleagues.

16:45

Nah, I tell people, it's just me.

16:48

I am a, I am the head of my household.

16:51

There's when I go home, there's no one there. So I am, I am the maid, I am the cook, I am, I am all.

16:57

I am the exterminator, I am all the things.

16:59

And then I have to come in here and be all the things to my students, right?

17:04

So somebody ought to give me some grace.

17:06

If it ain't you, it's going to be me.

17:09

Yes, oh no, that's such an important reminder.

17:11

But you're right, Like I think, when we're especially, the younger that we are, it sounds like when.

17:15

I both went to grad school, kind of straight out of college we.

17:18

I don't think I ever saw my advisors as like real people.

17:22

Right it's humans, right it's humans and I do think I'm hoping that now, as faculty members are being a little bit more outspoken about the things that they experienced, and just social media makes it easier for us to access it for people's perspectives.

17:36

Hopefully, current graduate students at least those in the cohort systems community have a clear understanding of the fact that many faculty not all of them, but many faculty are really just trying their best and, though they may drop the ball, it's not because they don't like you or they don't respect your work.

17:53

It's just like we really legitimately have many, many things going on, including like people in our department who like don't want us there and just make our lives a living hell.

18:05

And I do think those students who so, having gone to an HBCU and now I'm currently at a PWI, I do reckon, I think my students of color are a little bit more gracious because of the fact that the institution is also placing the same invisible labor on them due to DEI efforts, and so they can be a little bit more gracious because they feel it as well and they understand what it's like and we're able to help each other, or I'm able to at least say no, they got me too.

18:41

I too have this invisible labor.

18:44

I too am overworked and tired.

18:47

We need a break. So I think that that's a and I don't know, like I said, I'm not sure if it's just something that I kind of missed when I went to an HBCU, because you know the DE, I mean we are the DEI HBCUs I mean the whole campus, right.

19:03

So it wasn't any extra labor put on us, not any that you didn't sign up for, right?

19:09

So I do think that students of color at a PWI do have that experience a lot earlier.

19:17

Yeah, absolutely. So I wanna know a little bit more about your experience with the rest of your cohort.

19:23

What was that like? Did you have a big cohort, a small one?

19:26

Did you kind of get along with them, or people kind of doing their own thing?

19:29

Because, your mentorship is also really critical to the doctoral journey, so we'd like to just find out about both your relationship with your advisor as well as with your peers and colleagues.

19:41

So my cohort, if I recall it, might have been eight of us, two women of color and then the rest not.

19:54

But I'm trying to think five women, five women, okay, so I'm like there was nine of us, nine and a half, because we had someone come in in the spring we had.

20:08

So one of my cohort mates had a partner and then he decided that he applied to the program, but he got in in the spring, so technically he is like adjacent to our cohort, so we had about nine and a half.

20:22

So it was five women, four men.

20:26

So the other woman of color she was from Puerto Rico we got along, all of us got along.

20:33

Actually, our first year we were able to study together.

20:36

We would go and hang out sometimes.

20:38

We worked together. So we didn't necessarily have that problem of competition per se, which was good, and I think part of that was some of us being authentic and being ourselves and being genuine and being like I don't know what I'm doing.

20:53

I will never have no idea what is going on.

20:57

I remember I used to be in seminar and I'm like well, I know that all y'all are talking, are trying to talk about what this is about, but I'm gonna tell you why I can't even grasp what this is about, because why in the world do I need a key to read through all these acronyms that this man just put in his paper?

21:15

I don't know what this man is talking about, because this is alphabet soup.

21:20

I've never seen so many acronyms in one place before, and I went to an HBCU.

21:25

We love acronym. So I think me and some of the others being authentic was we created a space where we were able to depend on each other.

21:36

Now, after that first year, we all went into our respective areas, so we didn't see each other that much anymore.

21:42

We lost quite a bit of cohort members.

21:46

The other woman of color she was from Puerto Rico.

21:49

That was our first year in grad school was when Puerto Rico was hit by the hurricane, and she was an activist in Puerto Rico.

21:56

So she felt a greater call to going home and actually doing her work directly with the community than to be in the ivory tower and, of course, absolutely respect her for it, because the work that she was doing was important, was important and I've always been proud of her for making that decision.

22:15

I do believe only two of us have graduated out of my cohort out of the eight to 10.

22:21

Only two of us have graduated, and it was myself and one of the other women.

22:29

She was older, so she was ready to.

22:33

She hated even, in fact, she had to go back to school, but she got in, got out and both of us did, got jobs, and so yeah, OK, before we pivot to your life after the doctoral degree, do you think were some of the key factors that helped you get to and through the degree compared to some of your cohort mates?

22:58

Therapy. I was the mental health advocate of my group.

23:04

I was the one that was like I'm going to the health center to go to therapy.

23:10

Somebody got to talk to me and this is not OK.

23:14

Therapy, understanding that academia was not made for me, like just having to chunk, just chuck things up, to that sometimes, like this is a space that was not created with me in mind and even though I am in said space, this space was not created with me in mind.

23:37

So of course, this feels uncomfortable, of course this feels wrong, like this is, yeah, it is because they never expected Lil' Lowe Brown, me, to be here, right?

23:48

So that was, I think, the biggest thing.

23:50

And then I guess I always appreciated the autonomy that came with being a professor, being a PhD student, because I was on fellowship.

24:02

I did not have to teach, I did not, I didn't necessarily have to take on RA ships.

24:08

Everything I did was to put extra money into my pocket or to just get experience.

24:12

So I had a lot of autonomy and in that I was able to spend time with my family.

24:19

I was able to spend time with my family, and so that was great.

24:24

That was great. But I also still feel like, even though I was with my family, sometimes I wasn't present.

24:31

So that's always something that I often think about.

24:34

I'm like, even though I was there, I don't feel like I was.

24:38

I just I feel like the PhD kind of had me in a chokehold, secretly in the corner.

24:45

That's actually interesting because a couple of people have talked about and I don't know if this has come up in season one, but in season two I feel like a lot of people have talked about this idea of ensuring, on the one hand, either ensuring that you're spending time with your family, because that is time that you can't get back, not letting the doctoral degree, not letting the PhD prevent you from you know, really spending quality time with the people that you love and care about, and I'm curious if well, no, season one was also a post pandemic.

25:20

I was going to make a, I was going to suggest a theory that it has to do with the pandemic, but season one was a good one?

25:25

I do, I do think so. I do think so because I just think about the piece of the, the piece of the pandemic, and then being at the stage in your life where your elders are starting to get sick, your parents are becoming elders, you know, your elders are passing away.

25:44

I think that, coupled with the pandemic and the multitude of health issues that came post pandemic, you know, due to us, one not used to people, germs, people having long-term complications from having coronavirus, things of that sort of nature, all of that together, I think probably really put an emphasis on wanting to make memories, wanting to be with your community, because none of us foresaw what we experienced, absolutely.

26:13

Yeah, you're 100% right and, as you say that I'm now thinking, I think that most of the people who we interviewed in season one- even though the interviews were conducted in 2021, I think that most people had gotten their degrees before 2020.

26:26

So that makes sense that people who we spoke into this season, who may have graduated a little bit later, likely were in grass, or at least some part of their journey was heavily influenced by the pandemic.

26:37

So thanks for that reflection piece. So now, talking about your work, what are some of the most pressing issues?

26:46

You only pick two. I'm going to limit it to two.

26:49

What are two of the most pressing issues that black communities face right now in terms of political knowledge?

26:57

Since that's your area of expertise and issues might not be the right word, so you can feel free to share.

27:06

Maybe there are pieces of, like black political knowledge that the rest of the country is missing out on.

27:13

You can either share that or you can feel free to take the question the direction you want.

27:17

Yeah. So I think two of the biggest issues, or maybe points, is that one.

27:23

My students and I were actually just talking about this.

27:28

It was a matter. It's a matter of like a moving goalpost.

27:31

It's very difficult.

27:34

It's very difficult for a nation that never saw value in a group of folks other than for their labor and for their bodies, for them to then recognize our value in other areas.

27:50

And so part of my work is showing like there is value in what black folks know and that these facts are just as reliable, they're just as consistent measures as some of these facts that we've been asking since 1945.

28:10

And we have to understand that these particular facts, these facts, may even be better measures.

28:21

They may be better markers of being knowledgeable about politics because they don't just cover one particular aspect.

28:28

There's normally some type of it measures knowledge in a way that's more multi-dimensional.

28:36

So you're more likely to have folks across the board, across the citizenry, know these particular facts than just you knowing who has control of the House, of the Senate.

28:47

So that would, I think, be the first one.

28:51

Second one is our spaces, our black folk spaces, our black people spaces church, bee shops, barbershops, boys and girls club, community centers, fraternity, sororities, all of the above.

29:06

These are spaces that we need to make sure that we're pouring into, because these are the spaces in which black children will be socialized into American political culture and black political culture, and these particular spaces serve as reinforcements for knowledge for and other aspects of political behavior.

29:26

So we really need to make sure that we are pouring into those spaces.

29:30

Still, in my dissertation I tell the story of I tell a couple of stories about knowledge that I gathered from black spaces, and one I got from church.

29:43

My pastor growing up in Little Rock, arkansas, was a lawyer and he sat us down I think it was like from 12, 12, 12 to 18 or so, or 12 to early 20s.

29:55

He sat us all down together and he spoke to us about statutory rape laws because he was dealing with a case where there a young black man was now facing statutory rape with a girlfriend and they had, I guess they had known each other, but once her family, her parents, found out that they were sexually active, they did not care that it was consensual and they pressed charges against him, and so he wanted us to be aware of what the laws were in Arkansas.

30:24

That you know, even though and he I don't say this, he really didn't even try to put a Jesus spin on it Like Jesus don't want you to, you know, have sex.

30:33

It was more so of no. I need you to know what the laws are.

30:36

I need you to understand that this is something that, even though you can consent to by law, this person cannot consent and that it is no longer their decision.

30:46

It is their parents decision on whether or not they choose to be upset about these actions.

30:51

So, again, you know, given that this is how you know you should be thinking about dating, this is how you should be thinking about having questions, liking folks.

31:01

And that stuck with me because I was like what I mean I'd never that's not a conversation with everything that you would have with your pastor, and then to sit us all down, I mean, like I said 12 to 20, and be like, yeah, I know I got a big group of y'all in here, but y'all need to know this.

31:21

I would not be doing my duty as your pastor and potentially your lawyer if something happened, if I don't tell you this.

31:29

And so, and I think about all throughout my life, the different spaces where I got to know about blackness, black history and just how to be safe as a black person.

31:42

They all happened in black spaces, so we have to keep pointing to these spaces.

31:47

Yeah, yeah, that's such an impactful story.

31:49

Are you writing a book?

31:52

Yeah, so my dissertation is. I am about to start the process of turning my dissertation into a book.

31:58

It was written in book format six chapters, so now it's just kind of revising and finding time.

32:07

Yes.

32:09

Do you guys have a writing board?

32:11

We do not have a formal writing group that meets all the time, but we do.

32:16

In the spring we do a dissertation writing accountability challenge and so for that we like pair people off and we have prizes for, like, who gets the most writing done.

32:27

So that's one of our spring programs.

32:29

Okay, yeah, can you talk about since you mentioned a little bit earlier about being able to have fellowships that like absolved you from having to teach or be an RA can you talk about the role of both academic year fellowships and summer fellowships in both preparing yourself for graduate school?

32:53

Can you talk about the role of summer fellowships and academic year fellowships, both in terms of preparing you for graduate school and helping you and preparing you for your ultimate career?

33:04

Like just the whole preparation, like how were you prepared by the summer research programs that you did before you started grad school, as well as the fellowship that you held while in grad school?

33:15

So I believe that my the summer programs I did prior to graduate school really helped me understand more, so of understand more about academia, understand more about the research process from start to finish, and also the importance of having community during that process.

33:36

I mean because I just recall, and at least when we were, when my cohort was at this Ralph Bunch Summer Institute, we were the cohort that did not well.

33:51

Some of us had work-life balance, some of us did not.

33:53

And after our cohort there was a rule that you could not sleep in the computer lab because we would sleep in the, we would pillow and blanket.

34:05

I need 30 minutes, wake me up in 30 minutes in the computer lab on campus at Duke, and so and that's the thing I say it really gave me an inside look of how this was gonna go.

34:17

I mean because sometimes I mean we hope that that's not what you're doing, but sometimes if you have a deadline, that is what it is.

34:22

I need 30 minutes just to let my brain just turn off and turn back on.

34:26

And so I think that really gave me a snapshot or at least a glimpse into what academia will look like In terms of my fellowship while I was in graduate school.

34:37

It was a blessing to not be funded by my department.

34:46

I was funded through the college, I think.

34:49

Okay, so that's the lesson. The lesson is sometimes, when you get your money from somewhere else, your money needs to be attached to another entity and not the entity that directly oversees you, because that allows you some type of leverage, that allows you strategy when it comes to certain things and you don't have to be concerned sometimes about particular politics, and I think that was the lesson there.

35:17

A drawback was that I was not allowed to teach, so I essentially had no teaching experience.

35:23

No teaching experience when I came into my job.

35:28

But that was not the case. I had done other things too, because I was worried that that was going to be a deficit when I was applying and I saw out opportunities to try and make sure that it wasn't.

35:41

So I had a small TA ship and then I actually helped create a class called Data Science and Public Policy while I was at Purdue with a professor.

35:49

So I had an idea of what it took to create a class from scratch, what it looked like and that sort of thing, so I was able to kind of get around that.

35:59

Awesome that's.

36:02

I haven't thought about like okay, if you don't end up having to teach, how does that potentially Exactly.

36:07

You had a disadvantage, but if you wanna, teach. So that's helpful.

36:11

Helpful just like context for some folks who might be in a similar position.

36:17

So, as we wind down, what is one thing that you would do differently if you had two persons?

36:22

Strange reason to your PhD all over again.

36:33

I would spend more time with my family, and I spent a lot of time with my family, so, but I would spend more time.

36:39

I lost two grandparents while I was in graduate school, and the first happened my second year I wanna say second maybe going into my third and so that did kind of wake me up early on of?

36:55

Yeah, I know I need to, because the last time I saw my grandmother she was in a casket.

36:59

I did not get a chance to see her beforehand and that bothered me.

37:03

So I was the closest I had ever been as an adult to my maternal great-grandmother.

37:12

I had maternal grandparents, so I was with them all the time.

37:17

You couldn't see them most of the time without me.

37:21

If somebody had a doctor's appointment, someone had a surgery, anything, I was there.

37:28

And my maternal grandmother ended up being diagnosed with breast cancer while I was in graduate school.

37:32

She's I mean, she made it.

37:35

It was my grandfather who ended up passing away, but she is technically not in remission, but she is.

37:43

She's well. She is, you know, figuring out what her life looks like now as a 75 year old who does not have her partner of 50 plus years.

37:53

But I would just spend more time with them and it probably focused more on being present with them in the moments that I did have being more present.

38:02

But yeah, that would probably be the only thing that I would do differently.

38:08

I'm really sorry for your loss and thank you so much for your vulnerability and that reflection on that time of your life.

38:14

Our very last question, and maybe this is tied, maybe it's not tied, but what is one piece of advice that you have for current black women and non-binary folks who are in a doctoral program?

38:26

Only one.

38:32

I got two.

38:33

Okay, okay, I'll let you have two.

38:36

Again, remembering that the Academy was not made with you in mind.

38:38

That kind of helps. Certain things roll off your back.

38:42

And then our running joke is WWJD, what would Josh do, what would Jake do?

38:47

And so it is your prototypical male student that think that they know everything.

38:56

So sometimes you have to employ what would Josh do, what would Jake do?

38:59

And that helps.

39:02

Sometimes you just be like well, I ain't read, but I'm gonna say some too.

39:06

Who cares, it'll be fine.

39:08

So that would be my piece of advice.

39:13

Well, thank you so much, Dr Jackson for joining us on the Coercises Podcast, sharing your really interesting research, your trajectory, your journey, as well as the really important and insightful advice that you had for our current doctoral students.

39:27

As well as you gave us some advice for people who are either thinking about exploring doctoral programs and for even undergrads, who anyone who has a black woman professor.

39:35

This episode is for you, too, because we are doing our best.

39:40

We're trying, we are all trying.

39:41

Yes, so thank you so much again.

39:44

Thank you, thank you guys, for having me.