The Sway: October 2022
Welcome
The Sway is Howard University Graduate School's news publication. It serves to celebrate and highlight graduate student, alumni, faculty and staff achievements and updates. It is published regularly during the academic year.
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We also encourage all alumni to join one of our networks on LinkedIn. The Doctoral Alumni Network can be found here, and the Master's Network here. The Graduate School also regularly publishes updates on its social media channels: Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
Word to the Wise: Jenna Warren
What is your area of research and why did you pursue it?
I’m in the Clinical Psychology program, and in general my research interests are rooted in highlighting pathways to mitigate and prevent negative health outcomes in minority communities. Specifically, I hope to examine the relationships which exist between self-reported measurements of health and health prioritization and psychological distress. I chose Clinical Psychology in particular because it grants you the ability to utilize both a research based lens and a clinical lens in assessing and addressing disparities.
What skills do you think best prepared you for doctoral study in this field at Howard?
Success in clinical psychology requires you to maintain both technical and interpersonal based skills. As an undergraduate, I was a research assistant in an early education lab, where I was exposed to interviewing, coding, and data analysis. I also spent three years working alongside area teachers and school guidance counselors to develop and implement activities aimed at acknowledging and mitigating issues facing adolescent girls to promote socioemotional wellbeing at a public high school. This introductory experience provided me with skills in not only self-awareness and personal efficacy but also patience, open-mindedness, and humility to build resourcefully with others in working collaboratively to facilitate student growth and success.
Where do you hope your research will have the greatest impact long-term?
It is my primary hope that my work will contribute at the local level, providing clinical services and information distribution to people within my community to improve mental healthcare accessibility. Generally, my goal is to produce research and publications that build on the dialogue around health disparities in a multitude of contexts and foster structural changes which lead to equitable distribution of aid and resources in order to preempt those disparities.
What career advice would you give to your peers and those aspiring to graduate education?
As an undergraduate, reach out to faculty in areas that you’re interested in pursuing; take classes with them, have lots of conversations about their research, visit and work in their labs to expand your knowledge, network and maintain relationships with faculty mentors. Additionally, all experience is good experience, and the more experiences you acquire the more you learn about your own preferences.
Dean's Corner
We’ve all heard the expression what’s in a name? When we first began discussing the possibility of launching (and maintaining) a newsletter in the Graduate School, I shifted the query-as-expression to include what’s in a newsletter? I’m a magazine person. I love a good magazine—with perfect layout, perfect images, and perfect storytelling. So, convincing me to add another item to everyone’s already flooded inbox was admittedly challenging.
It was bringing those two questions together that got me excited about this newsletter, though. After playing with titles in my mind for a few days, “The Sway” popped in and wouldn’t leave. Before “The Sway,” I was trying to convince myself that “Swag” was the one word that seemed to do the work we wanted the newsletter to do. Everything about a newsletter from the Graduate School at Howard is and has swag, at least to me. The double-entendre—the formal definitions of swag as decorative on the one hand and a gathering of things for travel on the other—seemed to work. I also liked the vernacular use of it as connoting confidence as a way of being. Howard graduate students got swag. I got it, and folks who know and love Howard would get it. But, admittedly, because we wanted to reach beyond those familiar with the work we do, it was a bit too informal.
A good research newsletter should be conversational but still not colloquial. “The Sway” seemed to capture it perfectly, much like this first issue does the work it needs to do perfectly. What’s in a name? So much. Our students and faculty are influencing the world in their respective fields. And we want you to know about it. What’s in a newsletter? “The Sway” chronicles the important work we are doing, but it will also capture our ambition—to help imagine and put a better world in motion.
From my little corner, we can build a better world together. Join us on the journey!
Dana A. Williams, Ph.D., Graduate Dean
Yes!
Dr. Williams E. Spriggs elected as President of the Labor and Employment Relations Association, the nation's leading professional association of labor economists and labor/management professionals. He is the first African-American elevated to leadership since the organization's founding in 1946.
Formerly Belize's Ambassador to Taiwan, Dr. Candice Pitts ('14, PhD English) named has recently been named Belize's Ambassador to Japan.
Dr. Sean Upshaw ('18, PhD Health Communication) just accepted a position as Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. Paula D. McClain ('77 PhD, Political Science) James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Duke University, completed her service after ten years as Dean of The Graduate School and Vice Provost for Graduate Education this September.
Dr. Ashleigh Brown-Grier, an alumni in Higher Education Leadership and Policy Studies, was awarded the Fulbright Research grant.
Howard University East Coast Graduate Alumni Gathering (virtual)
November 17, 2022
8:00 - 9:00 P.M. (EST)
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