Los Medanos College MESA and Monterey Peninsula College Umoja host keynotes by Raven Baxter

Raven Baxter gave keynotes for two California community college programs in 2021. She spoke to Los Medanos College's MESA students on Feb. 19, and at Monterey Peninsula College with its Umoja program on Nov. 5. Both talks were held online.

At Los Medanos, in Pittsburg, the MESA program hosted her in a 1 p.m. Zoom webinar. After her keynote she took questions from students. They asked about her path into science, imposter syndrome, diversity in STEM, and how molecular biologists were helping with COVID-19. They also asked how she came to be called the "Queen of Science Rap."

In November, her keynote at Monterey Peninsula College was titled "Embracing Your Authentic Self In STEM." She gave it as a speech, without slides.

Both talks came during a steep drop in community college enrollment. Enrollment fell 9.4% in fall 2020, Community College Daily reported. It fell another 5.6% in fall 2021, and enrollment of Black freshmen at community colleges was down 33.4% from 2019, according to National Student Clearinghouse data. In April 2021, Pew Research Center found that Black workers held 9% of STEM jobs, compared with 11% of all jobs.

Los Medanos College opened in 1974 as part of the Contra Costa Community College District. MESA, short for Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement, was founded in 1970 at Oakland Technical High School with 25 students. A formal community college program followed in 1993. MESA came to Los Medanos in fall 2009 to serve educationally underrepresented students in STEM fields.

Monterey Peninsula College began holding classes in September 1947 on the campus of Monterey High School. Umoja, a Kiswahili word meaning unity, grew out of a fall 2006 conference on Black student success at Diablo Valley College. The state recognized it as a student success program in 2008, and it now runs at more than 70 community colleges. The college's Umoja program works to raise retention, graduation and transfer rates for African American and other historically underrepresented students.

"What a fantastic event!" Monterey Peninsula College wrote after the keynote.

Baxter is a molecular biologist who taught biology at SUNY Erie, a community college in western New York. In 2021 she became Director of Diversity Initiatives at the University of California, Irvine's School of Biological Sciences. She was then a doctoral candidate at the University at Buffalo and defended her dissertation in June 2021.

The programs' pages are online for MESA at Los Medanos College and Umoja at Monterey Peninsula College.