Shawy Walcott

I attribute my success to God, my faith - faith and family. I had the blessing of having two parents in my life who were very active in being a girl amongst 5 girls in my household. Particularly having my father in my life, he always promoted this notion of self-sufficiency and integrity and judicial process, and this notion of social justice. We had to be passionate about social justice. We had to understand the process and the historical underpinnings from which we came, and how it's all tied together, and that legacy that's left behind for those of us to pick up and continue on. I think it all kind of ties together, but definitely my belief in Christ and a higher being, something bigger than myself.

The best career advice I ever received was: Don't stop. Keep going. If you can see it, you can achieve it. There was also another piece of advice that has stayed with me. I used to be the political director for Reverend Jesse Lewis Jackson, and he just recently passed, so this is in my mind as well. Reverend Jackson taught me to remember that everybody has a story, everybody has a song. I take that to mean that everybody matters. As a political pollster for so many years in polling, this meant: Don't miss anyone. Talk to everybody. Make sure you incorporate and integrate those very diverse perspectives.

Life can be long. What you're doing today may not be what you decide to do tomorrow. Opportunities are everywhere. Just remember that there's another opportunity around the corner. You don't have to stay in the position or in the stage where you are now. You can flourish. You just have to believe in yourself and make that move, make that transition to whatever else you think is out there.

When I look at academia and education, I would say this notion of DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion, on many levels - I'm talking about post-secondary education right now. If we talk about primary education, we're talking about funding and some of the typical conversations that we've been having for the last decade that haven't changed. The intervention of artificial intelligence changes the way we operate right now. On a primary level, how we manage and navigate in a world of AI has changed not only our pursuits, but what education actually means to us. That's what we're contemplating now on the primary level - what is education when we consider the fact that we have to accommodate for artificial intelligence? That conversation also moves over into post-secondary education when we consider AI intervening in that space. How do we exist, coexist, and keep our values and integrity and ethical and moral ethos intact? That is the conversation that we're exploring right now and struggling with in post-secondary education. But in addition to all of those things, politically, we've got this dynamic going on in America with regards to diversity, equity, and inclusion. That dynamic is also a sphere of influence that we have to contend with.

Work-wise, there's this notion of integrity, personal integrity. In polling, we have so many methodologies and techniques and practices that vary to get to that one end-game response or answer that brings it all together. It's debatable, it can be controversial, but you, as the pollster, me as the professional, have to be able to explain it and have to be able to wrestle with it inside. As long as I can explain it and I can understand how we got to where we are in our formulaic process, following the professional guidelines as to how this all happens, then we're on to something. That level of personal integrity in the overall process of pursuit is very important. If you don't have that level of integrity, if you don't understand how you got from one point to the next, you're out of the game completely.