Successful women from diverse fields shared their experiences and advice for other women at the “Celebrating Women’s History Across Disciplines” program Thursday.
The program was to provide expertise in the fields of education, business, liberal arts, science, engineering and technology, and public service explained Dr. Gloria Smith, director of Student Support Services, an assistant professor and chair of the Women’s History Program Planning Committee.
The panel featured women who are outstanding in their fields, including: Dr. Ingrad Smith, associate dean of the College of Education and Human Development, which hosted the event; Dr. Dorothy Stokes, Belhaven University; Joi Owens, attorney and legislative liaison, Disability Rights Mississippi; Dr. Wanda Newell, associate professor of Child Development, Alcorn State University; Dr. Tonyatta Hairston, owner, EnVision Eye Care; and Dr. Elayne Hayes-Anthony, director, Department of Mass Communication, Jackson State University.
Each of the women shared insights under questioning by moderator Maura Moed, host of JSUTV’s Metro Morning Live.
Newell told an engaging story about how she has never had to apply for a job, which may seem impossible in this day and age. But she gave the secret to her success: “People are watching you even when you don’t think they are.”
Her list of jobs and career trajectory is phenomenal, from being hired as a children’s health assistant by the physician in Alabama to establishing the Early Childhood Development Initiative with the City Colleges of Chicago, to teaching child development at the university level. At each step, she said, people were impressed enough with her work to offer her a job. Now, she says, she’s starting a children’s museum in Vicksburg.
“If you want something, it takes hard work. Nothing will be handed to you,” said Hairston, who confided that her childhood dream was to become a doctor. She detailed her rise from taking a chance on opening a business in an “old ratty building on State Street” to now having two thriving businesses (including one at One University Place at JSU), being in the Mississippi Business Journal’s Top 10 Business Women in Mississippi and named Young Optometrist of the Year.
“Success is relative,” Hairston said. “It’s a process.” She has learned that owning a business is very different from working at a business.
Through a series of chance encounters, she is now embarking on an optometry software consulting job. “I’m very excited about that,” she said.
Smith detailed a varied career from working at the Miami Herald to teaching in a school wracked by gang violence to serving in administration at JSU and being a published author. Once, she took students who were marked for failure and had them successfully competing with honors students. “I am absolutely convinced that students want to learn,” she said.
Holding low expectations for students, or anyone for that matter, she said, is a tremendous barrier. “I found that to be worse than racism.”
Now, she says, she’s promoting publishing by JSU faculty.
Anthony said her dream was become a television anchor, though at that time women and people of color found that to be an impossible dream. “My journey started right here at Jackson State University,” she said. She managed to obtain a job as an intern at WJTV, where she said, her intention “was to make myself indispensable.”
Through her dedication to that goal, she said, she eventually was hired as a producer and then achieved her dream as an anchor at WJTV.
Her mentor at JSU, Anthony said, was then-provost Dr. Estus Smith. She was astonished when he refused to hire her after she obtained her master’s degree, she said. Instead, he pushed her to obtain a doctorate and helped secure a scholarship for her at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
She went on to more “firsts,” including being the youngest chair at JSU and leading JSU to become the second HBUC obtaining accreditation for mass communications but first headed by a black woman. Now, she said, she’s starting another first: formulating a new journalism department and putting together a team of top-notch faculty and adjuncts.
A man also acknowledged the influence of a powerful woman in his life and the advice she gave at the end of the program.
“My mom is my hero,” said Dr. Daniel Watkins, dean of the College of Education and Human Development.
“I stayed in trouble,” as a teen, he said. He was an athlete and didn’t think education was important, but his mother stood behind him. “I never dreamed I would be dean of
a college, much less by my favorite, Jackson State University.”
His mother’s advice, he said, was: “Never give up and never give in.”