NBGN blog
My LAMENTATION
Crystal Garvey, RN, MScN PhD Candidate, Queen's University My lamentation is poison………It has made me septic I can feel the poison flowing through my veins, BUT I STILL have to have a grin I’ve been conditioned to not express how I feel It always has to be a service with a SMILE I always have to be understanding, Even when it hurts….. Let’s not forget that I got to be patient… But through it all…. It always has to ...
NBGN 2021—2022 ANNUAL REPORT
marcus singleton, July 18, 2022 Although we did not meet all the goals we set for the Network this year, we believe we have done some critical work. Most crucially, we have kept the NBGN going (and even growing to 209 members) through a particularly challenging time. Despite the pandemic, we are still trying to figure out how to keep the members interactive and engaged the best we can by posting 1-2 posts on the message board and 1-3 ...
NBGN FALL 2021 NEWSLETTER/REPORT
As the new 2021-2022 Coordinator for the NBGN, I knew I had big shoes to fill; receiving the baton from Cherie A. Daniel to continue this fantastic work of creating community and networking opportunities for Black graduate students across Canada. I want to take the time to thank Prof. rosalind hampton, Cherie A. Daniel, and Festus Ajayi for all the support and confidence you all have instilled in me to continue this work and vision of supporting Black graduates ...
A Tale of Two Graduate Students from Two Different Cities
PART 1 TORONTO VIA ONTARIO INSTITUTE FOR STUDIES IN EDUCATION (OISE) This reflects the experiences of Marcus and me in our Grad school life. It was 2019 Winter I believe when we first met in one of Dr. hampton’s classes. Marcus introduced himself to the class with a strong introduction “I am from the South-Side of Chicago.” He spoke candidly about his experiences in education in the United States. I instantly was impressed with his rawness to just ...
2020-2021 Annual Report
by Cherie A. Daniel & Festus Ajayi JULY 2021 We started out small and ended out big! What started as a vision of connecting Black graduates across Canada has become the National Black Graduate Network. We (the collective "we") have faced a year that has been unprecedented with COVID-19. While that may have changed the way we launched the NBGN (in September of 2020), it did not break our ability to support each other. Hence, we would like to ...
Being Black in the Academy
By Dalia Elsayed, Concordia University As I bid farewell to 2020, I reflected on the many conversations I had with my Black female friends. During that year, while going through a global state of lockdown, we became more concerned with our state of being, more aware of the factors that contribute to our poor mental health. As a result, I realized that anger was the dominant theme of our conversations. I want to speak of anger because I have ...
What is your pandemic experience as a Black Graduate Student?
Recently, I had a chat with some friends who are grad students. As with every informal conversation, we digressed into series of topics, one of which was our COVID experiences. Each person recounted the most ways they had been affected by the ongoing pandemic. A common response was that studying had become more difficult due to being stuck at home, low motivation, and series of distractions. Others mentioned how they finally had time to work on some ideas long ...
Systemic racism is alive and well.
I will never stop feeling sorry for people especially leaders who hold the opinion that racial profiling and systemic racism is not a thing in this country. For instance, last year I watched with amazement the claims by the Premier of Quebec, François Legault, and the leader of the Bloc Québécois, Yves-François Blanchet that there is “no systemic racism in Quebec.” For sure, there are several instances to point if one ever wishes to pay such absurdity a ...
Pensées du jour : L’avenir et l’éducation comme un moyen
Être une jeune femme noire en 2020, m’a montré que bien que mes ancêtres se soient battus pour moi, il y aura toujours bien du travail à faire. Tout ce qui s’est passé dans les médias au courant des dernières semaines, n’a fait que mettre en lumière des réalités que nombreux d’entre nous vivons au quotidien. Ces agressions physiques et psychologiques, ont de réels impacts sur nos communautés. Comme pour la plupart, j’ai grandi en me faisant dire que ...