Chat with Susamma Seeley for just a handful of minutes, and you’ll speedily comprehend that she is up for any challenge. Just after all, you really don’t enter a job in emergency management except you are focused to public support, willing to deal with catastrophes head on and put together for disasters, the two identified and mysterious.
I initially spoke with Susamma a number of several years in the past, when she had just completed 5 yrs as the Chairperson of the Global Affiliation of Unexpected emergency Professionals (IAEM) Usa convention committee. She experienced an extraordinary qualifications and was just about to start off her Ph.D. software.
I not long ago caught up with Susamma to inquire her about her journey in pursuing a doctoral diploma in catastrophe science and management at the University of Delaware.
Susan Del Percio: You have an extraordinary resume. You own a consulting company and served as an official global representative for a South Indian NGO with Exclusive Consultative Status with the United Nations Financial and Social Council. Prior to operating toward your Ph.D., you had been the Missouri Chairperson for the National Voluntary Organizations Energetic in Catastrophe, and the Missouri Statewide Director of Catastrophe Response for Catholic Charities, United states.
So why go for your doctorate?
Seeley: I was at the height of my vocation, but one particular of the largest worries I had was, I would wander into a room, crammed with predominately center-aged, white men, and see that they were being visibly astonished to see that I was the senior person onsite. You see, there are almost no girls of coloration in the discipline of unexpected emergency management
I experienced ample dismissive appears to be at work and determined to show “them.” Which is what lastly pushed me to get a Ph.D. But even as I began the doctoral method, I encountered the identical kind of reaction, normally feeling minimalized and undervalued.
Del Percio: I would imagine that your working experience as Convention Committee Chairperson of the International Affiliation of Unexpected emergency Supervisors (IAEM) would be a incredible asset.
Seeley: They could not get earlier my, admittedly abysmal, GRE grades, even nevertheless I was approved into the system. In addition … I cannot support but truly feel that could not get past the combination of my sexual intercourse and coloration.
I met individually with two professors, they each individual advised how I could be a superior graduate student. A person even prompt that I be a part of the university chapter of the Global Association of Crisis Professionals (IAEM). If both professor experienced bothered to read my application, they would have viewed that I experienced just served the previous 5 decades as the Meeting Chairperson of the IAEM.
Del Percio: Talking of your past, I just discovered that you had been a medic in the U.S. Army. Notify me about that.
Seeley: I was born in India and my relatives immigrated to the United States when I was four. My parents had been from a standard and conservative, South Indian relatives. They ended up just stunned when I joined the United States Army, the place I became a medic.
Del Percio: What took place following?
Seeley: Soon after I left the services, I graduated Summa Cum Laude from John Jay College of Prison Justice and later been given a master’s degree in Unexpected emergency and Disaster Management (MPA). I am a qualified Crisis Supervisor and finished the Countrywide Preparedness Management Initiative Government Instruction Application at Harvard University – Kennedy University of Governing administration.
Del Percio: Wow. Did you point out this to your professors? Your working experience have to have experienced to make up for your GRE scores?
Seeley: Really, it experienced the opposite impact. I was explained to that I could be ‘useful’ to their other pupils. Not the moment did they give significant perception or advice in an hard work to enable me.
It left me with that very same feeling I outlined before, the moment yet again eyes were searching at me with that acquainted seem, “You don’t belong right here, but we can use you.”
Del Percio: You have dealt with this sort of mindset your whole career, what retains you shifting forward with a generate to do even much more?
Seeley: I want to make modifications driving the scenes, by coverage. You see a large amount of machoism and problematic habits from numerous males, demanding to be in charge. I believe that in creating guidelines that will guide to having the most able human being in cost, not the loudest.
Moreover, we require procedures that will stimulate people to get associated from distinctive backgrounds and activities, that also indicates recruiting much more ladies and people today of colour.”
Del Percio: You described that you are an adjunct professor and teach management. I am a distinguished lecturer at Emerson University, and it is unbelievably gratifying, what has been your encounter?
Seeley: I adore it! It is what keeps me enthusiastic about the upcoming.
Obtaining a position in training the core concepts of leadership to college students is extraordinary and satisfying. In addition, being a instructor of shade enables me to influence how the learners look at females and folks who look like me. In some smaller way, it allows me to have an affect on the long run, and most likely even set an instance for younger, immigrant women of all ages. I support make place for all to converse and share their views. That it is significant to desire massive, and be prepared to be successful. I by no means imagined the impression educating would have on me.