Building Inclusive Communities Seminar Series: Dr. Ellise LaMotte
November 3, 2020
Our third seminar of the year, “How to Advocate for Yourself and Your Community,” was led by Dr. Ellise LaMotte, Director of the Center for STEM Diversity at Tufts University. This was our first discussion-based event of the year, where attendees had the opportunity to meet others in STEM and share advocacy experiences and strategies. Discussions from two breakout sessions about advocating for yourself and your community led to a set of recommendations for advocacy, including:
The need to form a relationship and trust with someone first before making or receiving a request for help.
Asking questions rather than making statements can be much more effective in challenging someone in a position of power.
Have confidence! We need to be heard, share our opinions, control the agenda, and make our needs known.
It’s important to acknowledge additional difficulties in advocating for ourselves as women, as international students, as a result of gender norms, language barriers, culture differences, etc.
Take time to understand and work with the power structures in place: find allies, advocate as a collective rather than as an individual, etc.
Dr. LaMotte also shared some effective ways to advocate for ourselves and others as graduate students, including developing peer-to-peer, faculty-to-peer, and alumni-to-student mentoring groups, developing and participating in accountability groups, and setting commitment dates and rewards for accomplishing tasks.
The event was capped off with a networking discussion on our own needs and offerings. This followed another central theme of the event: Advocacy is a two way street! Attendees shared skills and services that they are willing to share or looking to find, including CV/resume peer edits, help identifying non-academic career paths, and coding skills. We plan to continue to facilitate this type of networking among our members. Please keep an eye out for further information on the skill-sharing network in our upcoming newsletters!
Finally, Dr. LaMotte emphasized the importance of having a sense of self-worth and knowing your strengths and value. Understanding that “you belong here” is crucial for advocating for the needs of yourself and others, and will allow you to ask for the help you need to be successful. Building community and finding the support you need will allow you to do great things in graduate school for yourself and those around you.
About the Speaker
Dr. Ellise LaMotte is the Director of the Center for STEM Diversity at Tufts University. In this role, she supports underrepresented populations in STEM fields through programmatic offerings, as well as financial and social/emotional support. She holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering technology and a master’s degree in business administration, both from Northeastern University. She also received a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, focusing on the experiences of African American women in engineering as they successfully persist to degree completion.
Prior to working at Tufts, she was the Director of Academic Services at Olin College of Engineering and worked for Babson College’s Graduate School of Business as the Director of Operations for the Graduate Admissions organization. Dr. LaMotte previously served as the Director of the Women of Ethnic Diversity Initiative for the Commonwealth Institute, an organization that supports women entrepreneurs. In this role, she managed recruitment efforts, program development, and implementation, as well as fundraising initiatives to assist women of ethnic diversity as they grew their businesses.
