You may not know this, but women of color are the most educated demographic in the US. According to NewsOne: “in fall 2022, women of color accounted for 24.8% of total postsecondary enrollment and 42.8% of all female student enrollment, per the Postsecondary National Policy Institute. Among them, Hispanic or Latina women made up 12.2%, Black women 8%, Asian women 4%, American Indian/Alaska Native women 0.4%, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander women 0.1%.”

A little over five years ago, in May 2019, Damita Snow (now SSP President Elect) kindly introduced me to three women leaders, who all happened to be – yes, you guessed it – women of color. Damita suggested that Salina Gray, Ph.D., Raquel Tamez, and Rochelle L. Williams, Ph.D. would be a great group to interview for The Scholarly Kitchen during what we now think of as Trump 1.0. Fast forward to today and, just over six months into Trump 2.0, I’m very grateful to them all for agreeing to revisit that conversation in the light of their experiences over the past six or so years.

Each of them has now moved into new leadership positions – Salina as an Educational Specialist, Raquel as a Chief Inclusion & Engagement Officer, and Rochelle as an Executive Director. Learn more about their new roles, their evolving thoughts on leadership – how they tackle the challenges and define their successes, and what those past six years have taught them.

You’ve all moved to new positions since the original interview – please can you tell us a bit about your new roles and what you’re up to professionally now?

Rochelle Williams: Since our original conversation, I’ve taken on the role of Executive Director at Graduate Fellowships for STEM Diversity (GFSD). Leading this organization at such a pivotal moment has been both an honor and a challenge. GFSD is one of the few national programs still prioritizing equitable access to graduate education in the physical sciences and engineering disciplines, especially for students with experiences significantly underrepresented in STEM. Our mission is not just about funding fellowships, but about protecting opportunity itself in a time when opportunity is under threat.

I also recently completed my term as President of WEPAN (Women in Engineering ProActive Network), a role that further grounded me in the national struggle to protect equity work in higher education and engineering. WEPAN has long stood at the frontlines, working to create inclusive cultures in STEM education, and it continues to lead in this moment when many institutions are choosing silence, retreat, and/or complicity.

In both roles, and in the national conversations I engage with around public policy, STEM access, and higher education reform, I remain focused on one goal: ensuring the future of STEM reflects the full brilliance, resilience, and diversity of this country.

Salina Gray: I am currently an Education Specialist (Special Education Teacher). I teach students identified as Mild to Moderate Needs, in a Self-Contained Classroom (SDC), grades 1-3. I just completed my Mild/Mod Education Specialist Credential this month!  I was also accepted into a K-12 Computer Science teaching certification program. I would really love to bring a computer science and robotics program to my students and our school.

Raquel Tamez: Since our last conversation, I’ve stepped into a multidimensional role as Chief Inclusion & Engagement Officer at Charles River Associates (CRA), a global consulting firm. I lead the firm’s internal and external engagement strategy — this includes oversight of our internship and scholarship programs, global volunteering and pro bono initiatives, employee resource groups, and our broader community advancement platform. I also oversee marketing and communications tied to these efforts, as well as select corporate communications such as press releases and media inquiries. I also lead several global, firm-wide information governance initiatives, drawing on my legal and compliance background. These projects include enterprise-wide work around email retention, defensible deletion, and operational accountability — efforts that help teams access the data and tools they need to work efficiently, make informed decisions, and feel empowered. Just as inclusion aims to remove barriers and foster belonging, information governance — when approached with intention — is a human-centric discipline. It’s about setting people up for success.

More recently, CRA has tapped into my subject matter expertise in information governance. I’m leading several enterprise-wide initiatives focused on retention, defensible disposition, and operational accountability. It’s a rewarding return to my legal and compliance roots — underscoring that effective leadership requires both cultural fluency and operational rigor.

Beyond CRA, I’m building a boutique executive coaching practice for high-performing professionals — especially those from historically excluded communities — who are ready to lead more boldly, transition into board roles, or pivot with purpose. The work is personal, and deeply energizing.

What are your biggest challenges now as leaders and as women of color?

Rochelle: The hardest part of leadership today isn’t just navigating politically volatile or under-resourced environments. It’s navigating them with grace and strategic clarity when your very existence is being called into question through the lens of weaponized meritocracy. As a leader whose identity sits at the intersection of Blackness, womanhood, and queerness, I am constantly balancing institutional diplomacy with a fierce urgency for justice. I am often called upon to advocate within systems that are hostile to the very principles of equity they claim to support. It’s exhausting, especially when silence or “neutrality” is rewarded, and truth-telling is penalized.

For example, I’ve served on a national board where I genuinely felt seen and valued until equity, inclusion, and diversity were no longer convenient. When the political climate shifted, so did the values the organization acted upon. A major decision was made behind closed doors, with governance as a guise, and the message was clear: when pressured, even the most “inclusive” spaces will capitulate. I spoke up, and in doing so, experienced the isolation that comes from choosing integrity over acceptance.

What’s most disheartening is watching how quickly those same organizations that proudly released statements after George Floyd’s murder and pledged support for Black Lives Matter and racial equity have since erased “DEI” from their language, websites, and policies the moment their financial well-being or “existence” felt threatened.

What’s rarely acknowledged is that people of color and organizations like GFSD and WEPAN don’t have the luxury of retreat. We can’t erase the bodies we were born into or change our chartering documents when the pressure rises. We don’t have deep reserves or emergency funding that allow us to weather the storm without sacrifice. At GFSD, we won’t be able to take on new fellows in the upcoming academic year. At WEPAN, recent grant terminations that accounted for over half of our operating budget are forcing us to transition from a governance board structure to an operational one, due to the limited staff we’ll be able to retain. And yet, we’re the ones who continue to fight. We’re the ones who show up, even when showing up costs us everything.

Salina: Learning how to design, plan and implement a transformational science and technology program! Although my students are in Special Education, I want them to have access to a rigorous STEM program. At some point they are going to be adults in a world that is more technologically dependent than it is now. I would be failing them if I focused only on their Language Arts and Mathematics; they deserve the same opportunities in STEM that students in General Education have. As a woman of color, I continue to navigate spaces and places where my strong, assertive delivery is read and interpreted as ‘scary’, ‘aggressive’, ‘bossy’, and ‘intimidating’.

Raquel: As a Latina executive, one of the ongoing challenges is managing the tension between being visible and being fully seen. There’s a narrow window through which leaders like me are often expected to operate — driven, but approachable; assertive, but agreeable. That window hasn’t widened as much as we like to think.

We’re also navigating a cultural moment where efforts to advance inclusion are being questioned or outright dismissed. DEI and ESG are increasingly politicized, which can create hesitancy and confusion. But rather than retreat, this is a moment to lead with clarity, resilience, and resolve.

At the same time, I recognize the opportunity — and responsibility — to evolve culture from within. It’s not about fixing people. It’s about shaping environments where people can show up, contribute meaningfully, and grow. That’s the work I’ve been entrusted with, and I approach it with clarity, care, and conviction.

What does successful leadership look like for you?

Rochelle: Successful leadership, for me, means building liberated infrastructure: organizational systems designed not around profit or power, but around people. It is leadership that prioritizes care over control, values over optics, and impact over speed.

Liberated infrastructure means designing systems where people do not have to trade authenticity for access or burn themselves out to belong. It is about removing barriers, redistributing power, and making sure the conditions for thriving are embedded into how we work and not treated as a luxury reserved only for the C-Suite. That means everyone is trusted, policies reflect lived realities, and innovation is not occurring in a cultural vacuum.

Every leader, regardless of identity, should be striving for this. Too often, we see organizations with significant resources and influence choose to uphold structures that protect power rather than people. They cite process while abandoning purpose, resulting in a version of leadership that mirrors capitalism: extractive, short-sighted, and ultimately unsustainable. Liberatory leadership is a path forward if we want organizations to truly serve the people within them.

Salina: Successful leadership looks like open honest communication and building authentic relationships. A successful leader leads by example — integrity, compassion, empathy and humility. Successful leaders see themselves as part of a team — working collaboratively: coordinating, cocreating, and codelegating.

Raquel: Successful leadership is measured, values-driven, and rooted in intention.

It means:

• Setting the tone for a culture grounded in care, candor, and mutual respect
• Building trust across lines of difference and across functions
• Upholding the organization’s core values — especially when it’s uncomfortable or inconvenient
• Measuring success not only by results, but by relationships, reputation, and lasting relevance

And just as importantly, it means planning for what comes next. Leaders must continually ask: Who am I developing? Who am I advocating for? Who will carry the mission forward in new and powerful ways? These are essential leadership imperatives—and they require planning, perspective, and foresight.

What (or who) is sustaining you, and where do you get your strength from as a leader during these challenging times?

Rochelle: What’s sustaining me is the understanding that the chaos we’re enduring, especially under this administration, is not random. It’s targeted. It’s intentional. And most importantly, it is designed to deplete us. As a nonprofit leader committed to equity in STEM, I can feel the weight of the chaos every day. So, I’ve started responding in kind: by placing even more love, care, and detail into the parts of my life that give me stability.

I’ve also had to unlearn the belief that I have to fight every day to prove my commitment. I’ve learned to set better boundaries that honor my capacity, not just my cause. So now, I fight on the days I can, and more importantly, on the days I need to. That discernment, rooted in values and sustained by clarity, is what keeps me going.

Salina: The idea that struggle is not new. Humans have been working and fighting, building, destroying and reinventing since the dawn of civilization. I find my strength in this collective struggle, and my belief that all of us who are here on this planet at this time are here for a reason — and it is NOT so that we can give up!  My strength comes from the ancestors who had to face and brave and conquer the unimaginable so that I could be here today. All of their ways and wisdom are a part of who we all are. And in this constantly evolving world of tech much of that vast pool of knowledge and ‘help’ is literally more accessible than it has ever been in history! In seconds you can find answers to any and everything you can imagine! Even though these answers come to us on a screen, through ‘AI’, we have to remember that those answers are the results of Training Data: the vast majority of which originates from humans! I was at a conference recently, and learned another way of thinking of AI- it is Ancestral Intelligence! There is LITERALLY nothing new under the sun…we just have to lock in, and know that we really do have all of the answers, the health, the wellness and the resilience already here…within us. And if we can’t find it…we have the capacity to seek it out!

Raquel: I draw strength from the relationships I’ve cultivated over time — peers, mentors, sponsors, and coaches — wise and trusted voices who offer perspective when I need it most.

I’m inspired by the rising generation of leaders who lead with clarity, creativity, and conscience.

And I’m grounded by the practices that nourish me holistically: weightlifting, Pilates, yoga, meditation, solo travel, eating with intention, and reading historical fiction. Morning walks with my Great Dane, Owen. Jazz at dawn. The work of building my executive coaching practice and expanding my real estate portfolio.

These aren’t indulgences — they’re disciplines. They sustain my energy, sharpen my thinking, and keep me grounded in what matters most.

A lot has happened in the world since the original interview – looking back over the past six years, what would you want that earlier version of yourself to know?

Rochelle: Continue to trust your gut. You’re not overreacting. You’re not too sensitive. The storm you sense is real. Don’t shrink to fit spaces that were never built for you. If they can’t hold your brilliance, your boundaries, or your Blackness, they’re not worth your breath. But speak out anyway. Speak for those who need to hear you and those who can’t, but want to, because the harm in doing so is too great for them. Even when your voice shakes. Even when it costs you. Speak out.

Salina: I would want the earlier version of me to know that everything she has learned, studied, practiced, and developed was going to be challenged in significant ways. I would let her know: You are going to be facing some ‘inner testing times’, but you are prepared. You are ready. Stay focused on your goals, pay attention to your mental and spiritual health and well being. Be open to change, remembering that the ONLY thing you can control is yourself, so don’t waste time trying to change people’s minds. Show up, shine your light, plant your seeds and stay grounded and committed to the generations that will come long after you are gone!

Raquel: I would tell her:

“You’re not too much. You’re not too ambitious, too intense, or too bold. You are exactly who you need to be to carry out what you’re meant to do.”

I’d remind her that leadership isn’t about control — it’s about being anchored. It’s about adapting with intention, staying grounded even as conditions shift, and knowing that composure can be just as powerful as action.

And finally:

“Power” that comes from a leadership role isn’t something you hold and cling to — it’s something you share, to open doors, expand opportunity, and build a legacy greater than yourself.