Her Story
About Dr. Amelia
I started in education in 2009, coming straight out of college through a program called Teach for America. I didn't go to school to be an educator - I actually went to school for speech pathology and linguistics. I started teaching with Teach for America in Eastern North Carolina, fell in love, and found out that was just the place I was supposed to be. I often joke and tell people that teaching chose me. I have done everything from teaching special education to training teachers, coaching teachers, and I have been an assistant principal of specialized services, supporting the teachers who are working with students with disabilities, up in Philadelphia. When COVID hit, in the wake of everything with George Floyd during a heightened time in society, I decided to go back to school and pursue my PhD. I always did equity work already with Teach for America and in my community, so I decided to pursue the PhD with a concentration in educational equity. The program that I finished is Teacher Education and Learning Sciences, but my specialization is in educational equity, specifically around language, linguistic justice for African American English and other minoritized languages. I just finished my PhD at North Carolina State University, and I'll be starting my career as a professor at East Carolina University in the fall as a tenure-track assistant professor of elementary education.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Dr. Amelia
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I'll give you something that I often say, and it's an old saying - take the meat and leave the bones. For me, it is important that you obtain information and understand things, but also, you know everything won't be applicable to you in the moment. It doesn't mean to totally disregard it, because I tell people, like, sometimes you want to save the bone for seasoning. So it doesn't mean you have to necessarily throw things out, but it is important to kind of be able to filter what's important for the now and what might need to be saved and filed away for later on. I'd say that would probably have been one of the biggest things I just kind of live by. Another important piece I've learned is always being a learner. From Dr. Patricia Marshall, I've learned that for somebody of her caliber to have made it this far in her career, but always still reinventing herself through learning new information and placing herself in communities outside of the things that she's aware of - it's like, you're always learning something. That's important for me moving forward. You're always learning something.
02What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Integrity is probably the biggest one. I think that having integrity is important, especially during a time like this where information is just all over, it could be something that's true or not true. To be a person that produces in the community, and specifically, that's important to me. Along with that would be access. I value access to communities, to understand information, to have information, to make well-informed decisions. I realized that a lot of times we do the work, but don't necessarily include the communities in the outcomes, and being able to understand and digest the things, and to even have communication around the things that are happening in our communities. I'm really big on self-care and mental health, especially as a woman of color. I identify as Black and Latina, so Afro-Latina, but just having gone through so much over a lifetime, at the beginning of my day I start with self-care, taking care, making sure myself is in order and that I'm in a good space.
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