The Mixtape Series: For Black Students Navigating White Spaces

Young Black woman surrounded by White people with question mark signs over their faces

The African American Cultural Center will host a trilogy of events in March called “The Mixtape Series: For Black Students Navigating White Spaces.” The series aims to allow students, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, to network and connect through honest dialogue. Topics that will be addressed include experiences navigating spaces as a person of color, career choices post-graduation, life during graduate school and professional development opportunities.

A ‘mixtape,’ by definition, is a compilation of music, typically by different artists, recorded onto a cassette tape or other medium by an individual. The idea of a mixtape celebrates the dimensions of our identity as Black students on campus. Named “The Mixtape Series,” each of the topics deserves its own conversation; the series will focus on different struggles or points in time, similar to how one might actually create a mixtape.

The series follows an initiative to increase students’ connection to local resources, allowing them to network with faculty, staff and graduate students from across the Triangle in different fields. We hope that attendees who participate in any of the sessions will leave knowing the benefits of fostering community, a greater understanding for the next steps of their journey and how to maximize their potential while operating in their current space.

Through a panel discussion followed by Q&A, each part of the series aims to address different elements of student and early career life through a Black lens. All events will be held in the African American Cultural Center Art Gallery, Witherspoon Student Center, 2nd floor, from 7:00-8:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be provided.

  • March 14, 2018: a graduate student panel geared toward discussing topics about graduate school and navigating life.
  • March 21, 2018: a faculty/staff panel geared toward talking about graduate school, postdoc experiences and working in academia.
  • March 28, 2018: a roundtable discussion about finding community and overcoming additional barriers that womyn of color face in their current and future spaces.

Erin Elliot is a first-year doctoral student in educational psychology and a graduate intern in the African American Cultural Center.