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Women of color speak about academic success

By Michelle Martínez, Gavel Media Senior Staff, on March 25, 2010 11:45 PM

By Michelle Martinez, News Editor -

To jumpstart the upcoming Women’s History Month, the Black Student Forum organized a panel of several female Boston College faculty and administrative officials to discuss their experiences in their academic, personal and professional preparation as women Thursday night.

Carole Hughes, executive director for planning and staff development in the Office of the Vice-President of Student Affairs, spoke of her experiences as a first-generation college student born and raised in Boston. At her all girls’ high school, people constantly spoke of her potential undergraduate pursuits as being limited to nursing or education. Instead, she decided to pursue management studies, which was not her true passion, at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

“I wasn’t the student I truly could have been, had I pursued something I was actually interested in,” Hughes said. “The challenge was that I chose a field that I wasn’t actually that good in. It was bad academic advising.”

Inés Maturana-Sendoya, director of AHANA student programs, had a slightly different experience, having grown up in Colombia. After graduating high school, she also faced the task of figuring out what she wanted to study. The only career path on which she and her father could agree, however, was modern languages, so she went to the United States in order to pursue this field of study.

“We were a middle-class family in Colombia. There were many times I felt very guilty for putting him through paying for me semester to semester,” Maturana-Sendoya said. “At other times I felt resentful because it wasn’t the career I had wanted to choose.” Several years later, however, Maturana-Sendoya found herself thanking her father for picking something for her that actually worked, and for giving her the opportunity to teach languages in the United States.

Neudy Nuñez, Resident Director for CLXF, was also a first-generation college student. As the oldest of six and daughter of Venezuelan immigrants, she wanted her parents to feel that immigrating and leaving their family behind had a successful end product. “I felt a sense of responsibility was already placed on my shoulders, knowing that I had to make them proud,” Nuñez said.

When the time to select a university came, Nuñez was sure that she wanted to attend a large college, but was also frightened to leave home.

“My mom was very supportive and didn’t want me to fear it, but rather to explore the world, which she hadn’t gotten to do,” Nuñez said. She eventually chose to leave her home state of New York for Florida International University, where she faced the challenges of paying for a costly tuition, as well as being far from home.

“There were two points when I considered transferring back to New York because I missed my family greatly, but this was the best thing my mom ever did, cutting the umbilical cord,” Nuñez said.

Régine Michelle Jean-Charles, Assistant Professor of French and African Diaspora Studies and founder of “A Long Walk Home, Inc.,” spoke of her experiences as a Haitian-American, who, though not a first-generation college student, was part of her family’s first generation born in the U.S. From her days in a prep school in Boston, it seemed definite that she would end up at an Ivy League school.

“I applied to every Ivy outside of Massachusetts, and ended up going to UPenn. I just loved my undergraduate, mainly because I took my whole advising thing very seriously, always knocking at professors’ doors,” Jean-Charles said. “Mentoring has been really important to me. I’ve been blessed by having great mentors at every institution I’ve been at, even here at BC.”

As an activist in her undergraduate years at Penn, Jean-Charles witnessed a heartbreaking incident between males and females that tore at the fibers of the African American community. “We’re always forced to put race before gender,” Jean-Charles said, “but these two things cannot be separated, but must each be respected on its own right.”

All four successful women gave considerable advice on how to balance and manage their personal, academic and professional lives, especially in times when overwhelmed by work or other circumstances.

“Making a plan is a good idea, but you have to be exit plans for yourself in case some whacky thing happens. Definitely make a plan, but keep it fluid so you can cut yourself some slack,” Hughes said. “The most important advice is to pick the best possible partner: someone that when you work full-time and have kids with, will be there with and for you.”

“Listen to your internal voice and your heart,” Maturana-Sendoya said. ”Be in tune with what your heart is telling you, because that is the path that is going to work for you.”

“The older you get, the thought process doesn’t get any easier,” Nuñez said. ”It actually gets blurrier. But you have to give yourself a choice. I had a ten-year plan in which love and children weren’t a part of it, but it happens. You have to be ok with yourself if that plan goes off a bit.”

“College doesn’t prepare you for the reality of life. There’s no one way to do things, and you never know what’s going to happen,” Jean-Charles said. “One of the important things for all of you to take away is there is not one plan. We can’t give you prescriptive narratives on how to make it work.”