{"id":102310,"date":"2021-03-08T15:15:25","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T20:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=102310"},"modified":"2024-01-04T15:04:53","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T20:04:53","slug":"ddn-wright-state-student-with-three-science-masters-degrees-a-role-model-to-black-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2021\/03\/08\/ddn-wright-state-student-with-three-science-masters-degrees-a-role-model-to-black-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Dayton Daily News: Wright State student with three science master\u2019s degrees a role model to Black children"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Mia Burnett is a Ph.D. student in environmental sciences at Wright State University’s Dayton Campus.<\/p><\/div>\n

There are two words that describe Mia Burnett \u2014 driven and passionate.<\/p>\n

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The Wright State student already has three master’s degrees in the sciences and is now pursuing her Ph.D. in environmental science. She\u2019s just one of 65 Black females enrolled in STEM-related doctoral programs at Wright State, according to Wright State\u2019s assistant director of public relations Jim Hannah.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is a role model to any African-American child, especially considering girls, who are not that high in percentages in the Scientific world, pursuing PhDs,\u201d Sumudu Rajakaruna, Burnett\u2019s student mentor said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In addition to her passion for education, she\u2019s passionate about teaching her children the Black history lessons she learned while growing up.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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Teaching is something that comes naturally to Burnett, with a son in graduate school, another daughter in college at Ohio State and a 14-year-old still in the house. She finds herself teaching her children the importance of Black history, a curriculum she believes schools don\u2019t adequately teach today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cEleven months out of the year, we normally don\u2019t study black history,\u201d Burnett said. \u201cIt just gets shoved under the rug. We learn about Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, that\u2019s it.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
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Burnette\u2019s mother attended an all-black middle school in the late 1950\u2032s just after the time U.S. started to desegregate classrooms. Burnette learned a great deal of her history from stories that her mother would tell her growing up.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo my grandmother had to decide whether to send her to a public school, where she could be beaten, she could be shot, where anything could happen,\u201d Burnette said.<\/p>\n

Burnett\u2019s mother ended up at Charleston Catholic High School in Charleston,\u00a0W.Va., where her mother (Burnett\u2019s grandmother) felt that she would be safe, according to Burnett.<\/p>\n

Now as a mother to children of her own, she takes it upon herself to make sure she teaches her children the importance of their ancestors and their contributions to society.<\/p>\n

So Burnette makes sure her children understand what their ancestors went through just to get an education. She also teaches them about the contributions Black Americans have made to society.<\/p>\n

Recently, because of the Black Lives Matter movement, Burnett\u2019s 14 year old daughter, Lydia, has been asking more questions about her history and the racial tensions between African Americans and police officers.<\/p>\n

Having conversations with her children like these are important to Burnett, especially more often than just one month of the entire year.<\/p>\n

Burnette prays her lessons will help her children be successful and stay safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy major concern is my son. I do not want anybody doing harm to him when he doesn\u2019t deserve it. He\u2019s a very calm, even tempered young man,\u201d Burnett said. \u201cI just worry that he might be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and then there\u2019s no more son.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from having their mother as a role model, she\u2019s proud her children, especially her daughter Lydia, now have other African Americans, especially women, to look up to.<\/p>\n

\u201cKamala Harris, I think she, and Michelle Obama have put African American females on the map. Because, before, what were we? We\u2019re homemakers. We\u2019re very strong. We\u2019re very good parents. That\u2019s all we get credit for. But now we have a first lady, we have a vice president, and I think that is very important,\u201d Burnett said.<\/p>\n

Amidst raising kids and attending college, Burnette also finds time to volunteer once a month at Cross Over Community Development in Dayton, a non-profit supporting immigrants and refugees.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if more people helped each other, the world would be better,\u201d Burnett said. \u201cAll I can do is try to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

View the original story at daytondailynews.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Wright State student already has three master’s degrees in the sciences and is now pursuing her Ph.D. in environmental science. She\u2019s just one of 65 Black females enrolled in STEM-related doctoral programs at Wright State… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":102322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[730],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wright-state-in-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102310"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145528,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102310\/revisions\/145528"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}