Christy Dinkins, Ed.D.

I am driven by my community back in my hometown and that little girl that wanted to just save the world. I literally wanted to save the world. When I think about success and the things I've done, the fellowships, the people I'm connected to, I attribute all that success to that little girl and the dreams that she had, and how she felt so many barriers and so many things coming against her, but you know what? She said she was gonna do it, and she did. And she's still doing it. For me, it's this thirst for wanting to grow, continuously grow and learn, always being a student. The more I know, the less I know. The more I learn, the less I know. This idea of always learning and growing is just something that's always been with me, and wanting to make a difference in the lives of everyone that I interact with. I believe I can attribute my success to those things because you kind of keep yourself in this mode of, okay, yeah, you don't know everything, and that's okay. And in fact, if you ask more questions and you're more curious about bringing that to every interaction, then you're actually gonna learn more, you're gonna develop more, and you're gonna be able to do more for more people.

The best career advice I ever received was something I just heard last week at a camp for 75 high school students on our campus. One of our professors came and talked to the kids, and she said that throughout her life, when she was making decisions or thinking about something she felt like she couldn't do, she had these three things that she would say to herself that her parents taught her: I can, I must, and I will. When I think of those moments where I'm feeling imposter syndrome, or I'm thinking, okay, is this something I should really be doing? Is it worth it? Do I feel good enough? I just have to think of it like, I can, I must, and I will. I'm always finding different things every week to kind of pull from, but that was probably the most recent one that's really blaring out to me right now.

I would tell that young woman to always be open and always be flexible. I think about the current position that I have now, and there are other positions in the past where they weren't the first jobs that I thought to apply to, but they were the jobs where I grew the most. Those areas where I didn't apply - the only reason I applied to this job was because my spouse at the time had a health issue, and so I was just like, oh, great, they have a great healthcare team, how in the world can I contribute to that? I never, ever thought about working in healthcare, or even healthcare adjacent, but the job sat in my inbox for maybe 9 months before I applied. I've had several situations where other jobs, I didn't think about it, and I just sat there, and I said, you know what? What can I learn from this situation? So always being open, always being willing to learn from whatever situation you're put into, and just remain open. You never know what that flexibility, where that can lead you. Because I've had this experience with this position, I've done so many impactful things that I just didn't think were gonna happen at this point in my career. I would encourage her to just be open, be flexible, and sometimes give that job that you don't think is worth it a shot because you never know where it's gonna lead you.

Some challenges have been just the current administration of this country, honestly, and just how that has impacted the work that I do, the stipulations, the barriers. All the things that I worked to remove for people have now been placed on me. That's probably my largest challenge, and that's really big challenge that I have, because that impacts a lot of the things that I do for students and employees. But as far as opportunities, that challenge has also created opportunities for me to be more creative, for me to be more mindful of the work that I'm doing, and making sure that everything is data-driven. It's pushed me to make sure that everything that I do aligns with the mission and goals of the company, that I have some data to back up all the things. I just had to be a little more creative, I had to be a little more resourceful, and I've just had to figure out what does this look like going forward instead of being stuck in the past. How can we use this challenge to help us move forward and become even more impactful?

The values that are most important to me in my personal and work life are alignment, full alignment. I know there's not a true value because our values are supposed to align either way, but the season I'm in in my life right now, it's all about what makes sense, what makes sense professionally and what makes sense personally to me. A lot of my time has been pouring into others, making sure everyone is great, and so I do value being an intentional mentor. I'm not approaching mentorship as just a blanket situation. I want to be intentional behind that. I really value making sure that people feel seen and heard and valued. A lot of that probably comes from this idea that I didn't feel seen, heard, and valued throughout my career. Those things that I want to make sure that I'm aligning with are things that I'm intentional about, and sometimes maybe they're from experiences that I've had myself where I want to make sure no one else is experiencing these things.