How I Became a Research Scientist
I am a product of the Socio-Economic Movements of the 1960’s and 70’s also known as Civil Rights, Anti - (Vietnam)War, College Student’s, Black Power and Urban Unrest. In 1968, I entered Brooklyn College as a single parent, visual artist and classical pianist / symphony and jazz bassoonist from a household where my father was an Educator / established visual artist and master pianist. I was among the students who formed the Afro-American Studies Department and the Brooklyn College Day Care Center.
Social issues and questions were paramount and my artistic visions were expanding. One of my Professors took me aside and mentioned a book, (1967) The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual by Harold Cruse. I didn’t give it much attention since it was not on my required reading list. I read it while employed as a Social Worker in 1976, after I relocated to St. Petersburg, Florida. Cruse was highly critical of “what went down” with the social movements.
Cruse introduced the necessity for equally balanced development in politics, economics, and culture for African (Kemetic) American communities to prosper. He presented a blueprint for the Social Sciences to be included in the development of Black Studies Departments – Nationwide. I took on a mission to promote the Arts in the Tampa Bay Area. The experience brought about more questions than answers for me as a Cultural Intellectual. In 1982, I was accepted as a Graduate Student in the Africana Studies Department at Cornell University to study my Mentor, Harold Cruse and the concept of Cultural Development. My minor was in Communication Arts – the source of my training in Social Research, including Statistics and Attitude and Behavior Change. I was able to clearly define the concept of culture essentially, as: the way in which a people obtain their food, clothing and shelter. The title of my Graduate Thesis is (1985) Perceptions of the Arts Institution in the African-American Community: Focus on The Muse Community Museum in Central Brooklyn.
Fast forwarding to the Present: I became involved in several studies using Quantitative (using statistical numbers) and Qualitative (using focus groups and community surveys) Analysis. The data for Social Solutions Change Agents would guide me/us – it takes a team - to paint a picture of social realities with specific objectives for correcting certain deficits. Hence: I wrote Activating Social Solutions: Essential Keys to Progress, 2nd, Ed. (2020) with a deliberate objective and question: What are we doing to Save-Our-Selves? S-O-S