Rebuilding an Organization: the Future of SACNAS at Stony Brook University

More than 63.7 million people in the United States are Hispanic. Hispanics Americans make up 19.1% of the total population and according to the US Census Bureau, they are the largest racial minority in the United States. Although Hispanic adults make up 17% of the workforce, they remain underrepresented in science, making up only 8% of workers in STEM.

There are several barriers contributing to the lack of Hispanic Americans in STEM, including lack of resources like access to education and financial constraints. According to the Pew Research Center, Hispanic Americans are the least likely to be enrolled in college. In addition, 44% of Hispanic students are the first in their family to attend college, compared to 22% of White students. These trends only worsen in higher education as only 7.8% of PhD holders in science and engineering are Hispanic, compared to 70% who are White.

Native American students face many of the same challenges when accessing higher education.

It is estimated that 1.3% of the US population identifies as Native American or Alaska Native. As of 2020, only 22% of Native Americans between 18 and 24 years old were enrolled in college – compared to 40% of the overall US population. College enrollment has decreased 40% since Fall 2010, and graduate school enrollment decreased by 18%. 

Native students are especially underrepresented at Stony Brook University. Less than 0.1% of the student body identifies as Native American, despite the university being built on native land:

“Stony Brook University resides on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary lands of the aboriginal territory of the Setauket or the Setalcott tribe. We acknowledge federal and state recognized tribes who live here now and those who were forcibly removed from their homelands. In offering this land acknowledgement, we affirm indigenous sovereignty, history, and experience.”

One Stony Brook student is trying to change this. Sixto Taveras Lopez is a third year PhD student in the ecology and evolution program who is trying to rebuild SACNAS (the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanic and Native Americans in Science). Recently, I had the opportunity to talk to Sixto about SACNAS and why this organization is a valuable addition to Stony Brook’s campus community.

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What is SACNAS?

SACNAS is a really long acronym. It’s the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanic and Native Americans in Science. It’s basically an organization dedicated to contributing to the success of all underrepresented and underserved scientists or people in STEM. Whether you’re a student, a professional, a researcher, etc. And it’s a really important organization. I think it had a great impact for me as an undergraduate and I was very surprised to find out that there was no active chapter here at Stony Brook. So I’m putting in this effort because I think it’s going to have a similar impact to the undergraduates here, like the impact that it had with me as an undergrad. And it could also have a great impact for graduate students that are looking to either find networking opportunities through conferences, looking for employment opportunities or post-grad opportunities. There’s such a great network that SACNAS offers people of all levels.

Can you talk more about your undergraduate experience in SACNAS?

I went to Boston College during the pandemic. So when the pandemic hit, I think one of my biggest concerns was I didn’t really know what I was going to do post graduation. And the pandemic hitting, it reduced my accessibility to faculty because I was no longer on campus. And I felt like I couldn’t really ask any more questions to people about what they did after graduation. But thankfully I got an email from an advisor saying that BC was looking to start a [SACNAS] chapter and they needed someone to help with the effort. So they had a couple of professors and one student and then they emailed me – I joined in. And we started the chapter. 

So that started out just like making activities, even though it was the start of a year with people allowed to be on campus. Because of the pandemic still going on it could only be virtual. But we were still able to set up panels and social events through zoom and that allowed people to visit (at least virtually) the school. 

We answered questions that people had on what it meant to be a researcher, what it meant to be a professor, what you could do with certain degrees in STEM fields, etc. So it was a limited experience unfortunately because of the COVID pandemic but I feel like we were still able to make an impact. And it helped me a lot talking to the chapter advisors as well as the people that came to the panels to visit. That was one reason I was guided to at least applying for graduate programs and seeing that as an option for me after I graduated my undergrad.

So how much of an impact has SACNAS had on your graduate education? Would you say that SACNAS helped you to consider graduate schools as a career option?

Definitely. Yeah. I mean SACNAS connected me to people that you know hold PhDs or were in PhD programs and talking to them sort of helped me with my comfort level because I didn’t know really what a PhD was until like my sophomore/junior year of college. No one in my family has a PhD. I’m a first generation student. And yeah, I guess talking to people that have actually gone through it and know the challenges as well as the benefits of obtaining a PhD was really important for me and I think SACNAS has definitely provided that opportunity for me.

What are your goals for SACNAS or what do you want to see this organization do for students at Stony Brook? 

Well first, I think the recruitment effort never stops. So technically, we only require 10 active members in the chapter to be considered a SACNAS chapter, but we want to recruit as much as possible: both graduate and undergraduate students. We want everyone to feel welcome to come to meetings and voice their opinion on what the chapter should do. Because at the end of the day, the chapter will do what the people want it to do. 

As of now the plan would be to have an activity. So that could be things like science accessibility events where we can host panels of professors, early career researchers, people in industry, people that aren’t in academia, and have these people come in and talk to students that are interested or curious about what the process is of finding these jobs or finding these positions. 

We can have events where we give back. Where we can have students in high school, or undergrads, or even middle school. We can go to them or they can come to us and we can let them know what it’s like being a college student or being a grad student. The steps that we took, advice that we have for them in their current situation as a student, or in life. So I think it’s a lot of transfer of knowledge. Either us transferring to them, or finding others that can help us as we go through it. 

And then also, you want to build a community within the chapter. So it is important to think about. The Stony Brook community as a whole and beyond the Stony Brook community. But it’s also important to build a well knit community amongst the people that are in a chapter itself like these active SACNAS members so that would include things like going to regional conferences together for SACNAS, hosting social events, study groups, utilizing spaces like the CIE… things like that. Yeah, I think it’s important to focus on the nucleus because it allows you to better serve people inside of it.

Is there anything you would like to add about how SACNAS helped you grow or why this club is so important to you?

I’ll say like the main thing of SANCAS that helped me was it allowed me to connect to people that I wouldn’t have met if it wasn’t for SACNAS. There are a lot of people that, you know, they have pride and like being a past SACNAS member. I got an email from someone I think that was at CIE and they were like, ‘I’m so happy that you’re doing this chapter.’ Like, ‘I was a SACNAS member in 2002,’ that’s what they said. So people are proud to represent SACNAS and I think telling people allows you to like to meet so many others. That feels like that, that shows that same sort of pride and joy and like, trying to help people from underrepresented communities. So that helps. And I think also as an undergrad and even now as a graduate student, I feel like I always try my best to take an opportunity where I can have a leadership role or an opportunity to improve my communication skills because I think that’s something that I’ve struggled with a lot in my life. Just like having that confidence when it comes to communicating really. 

Being the SACNAS Vice President as an undergrad allowed me to take these opportunities like when we would have these panels, I was the one that would host them. I would be asking the questions the panelists would answer and like things that. This is like an hour-long panel. You’re just asking four or five questions on a piece of paper. It helps so much of your confidence.

Is there something like that you think people don’t know about SACNAS that you really want them to know? 

I feel like there’s things that I don’t even know about SACNAS yet because like I said, like it was a limited experience doing it in undergrad with the pandemic. I guess I would really just like to get the message out there that you are building lifelong connections when you’re in SACNAS. I still talk to the people that I was in the undergrad chapter with at Boston College. Like they were actually really kind when I told them that I was trying to start SACNAS at Stony Brook and they sent over materials and presentations that we had done when I was at BC, and flyers for the events. Even after you graduated from Stony Brook or whatever school, that community will still be there for you – to support you and help you whenever you need it.

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SACNAS is still recruiting new members. If you are interested in learning more, contact Sixto: sixto.taveraslopez@stonybrook.edu 

Sources:

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