Episode Transcript
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Welcome to Kendall speaks. I'm Dr. Brian Stewart, Kendall campus president. And today we have three distinguished people on our campus. First, we have our chairperson for social Science, Mercy Arias. Welcome.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Thank you. Great to be here.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Good to have you. And from the social Science Department, we have Dr. Yuli.
Say your last name for me.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: Palmares.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Palmares. I almost said that, but I was gonna put an L in it. And then professor from Criminal Justice Department, Leah Sheaf.
[00:00:35] Speaker D: Yes. Hi.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: All right, welcome.
So glad to have you guys with us today. First, let's start with our chairperson, Mercy. Tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you to Miami Dade College, Kendall campus.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: That's a great question.
I've been in higher ed now for over 20 years.
So I fell into higher ed purely by dumb accident.
My background is I'm a licensed psychologist.
And if you would have asked me about 20 years ago what I was going to be doing, it was never going to be higher ed.
And so when I finished my fellowship, I was doing fellowship over at the University of Miami School of Medicine in Jackson.
I was supposed to continue my position at the hospital and. And there was a freeze, so I ended up in higher ed. And then 20 years later, I'm here.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: You're still here.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: I'm still here. And I came to Miami, Miami Dade.
Relocated back from Connecticut to Miami, so ended up here. And I have the best department.
[00:01:36] Speaker C: Yeah, we agree.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: Have you always been at the Kendall campus?
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:01:41] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: And funny story, never had set foot in Miami Dade College until I started working here.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Wow. I think that's unique because a lot of people I talk to go to many campuses, so that's unique. That's very good. Okay. Dr. Palmeiras.
[00:01:53] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: Tell us about your background and your journey to the Kendall campus.
[00:01:57] Speaker C: So I was actually an MDC alum. So I was here a very long time ago. Before it was actually Miami Dade College. It was Miami Dade Community College, which really ages me.
But I also was at University of Miami and I was actually doing post. Postdoc at the Department of Pediatrics at the, um, School of Medicine. And it just so happened that that year there was a slew of professors that were retiring from Miami Dade College, and they sent out recruitment letters.
And when I came in for the interview, it just kind of felt like I had come home. It was very comfortable, very natural feeling, and I have not looked back.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: And have you been at Kendall, too?
[00:02:39] Speaker C: I have been at Kendall the entire time.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: That is two rarities. Okay. You're not going to make it a triple Play, are you?
[00:02:44] Speaker D: No, I'm okay.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Tell us about your background.
[00:02:47] Speaker D: So very similarly, like this wasn't what I kind of set out to do. I went to law school and was sure that I was going to graduate, get a high paying job and make a ton of money and never look back.
But the year that I graduated, there was a lot of senior attorneys, there was a lot of turnover. It was a really hard time to get hired. Right when I passed the bar, I ended up working for a wound care physicians group, as in house counsel.
It paid well, it was a great job, but I was so bored.
And I had a family member who had taught at Miami Dade and always talked about her job and how much she loved it and the interaction with the students and how fulfilled she felt. And I was like, that must be great. And there was a position opening at North Campus. It was a one year commit and I thought, why not? And similarly, I got in front of the classroom and I fell in love with my students. I fell in love with the content, I fell in love with the church job. And it's. I haven't looked back either. And I was at North Campus for a few years before I luckily was able to transfer down to Kendall.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Yeah, well that's great. We're glad you're here. And it is a good thing when you get in front of those students the first time. That sort can be a magical experience.
[00:03:56] Speaker D: It really was.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: Chairperson Eris, talk a little bit about the social science department and how it shakes academics and the professional. You know, everything we do here at
[00:04:06] Speaker B: the Kendall campus, Social sciences is one of those departments and criminal justice, we're one of those uniquely housed at the college. But I'll speak a little bit about social sciences. Most gen ed courses come out of our department at one point or another. You're going to have to come in through Social sciences.
Social sciences really prepares students to interact with people, societies, institutions with. We talk about culture, we talk about the interplay of groups. So at some point students are going to learn how to interact. In general, the disciplines that are typically housed in Social sciences specifically here at Kendall is psychology, sociology, history, political science, anthropology.
I'm probably forgetting a couple, but we have a lot of the gen ed courses that students will need to be a well rounded student.
So at one point or another they will take a class with us. And now with the Florida Civic Literacy Exam, they're all forced to come to our department to take one of those courses.
So we play a pivotal role for students to graduate if they don't take one of our courses, they're not able to graduate. But more importantly, we want them taking classes that are going to prepare them to be good citizens and ambassadors to our society.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Right, right. And you also have a good dual enrollment.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: Group of students too?
[00:05:32] Speaker B: Yes, we service about 2,000 students at the high schools. So we, although not part of social sciences, it's still in our part of our department, which is a student life skills. So students are taking that specific course which is really to prepare them for their first year of college. And so we have, I think, on average, from semester to semester, anywhere from 1800 to 2000 students that come and take a course at their high school.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: And it's still been going up. So. Yes, good work with that.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Let's talk about the faculty perspective for a minute. How do you encourage students to critically analyze and engage with social issues? And I know that especially in the state of Florida, that could be a loaded question, but still, our role as faculty is to engage students. How do you do that?
[00:06:19] Speaker C: So through experiences. So on the end of Cypher Psychology, we have students do a considerable amount of service learning, and so they're constantly out and about in the environment. We're actually one of the leading departments in terms of having students doing service learning hours.
So that's one part of it. We also have them engage in social projects that they create. A lot of our students want to do research and do internships and such. And so we try to help them come up with ideas that they can do research that are impactful in the environment.
And it helps them kind of pick out what the hot topics are, different perspectives about those topics. Just this morning I had a student that through her research actually has discovered that she was not as open minded as she thought she was.
Yeah, so I thought that was really interesting.
So it's really through experience.
So we love the students kind of coming in and out of the department, but we like it more when they have that outside experience and kind of bring it in so they can share it with other students too.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: And while we're talking, you have something very important coming a week from Saturday.
[00:07:29] Speaker C: Yes, we do.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: Thank you for bringing that to us.
[00:07:33] Speaker C: So we will be hosting the first Miami Dade County Sheriff's Department Law Enforcement Torch Run. And so it's a fundraiser for the Special Olympics. And so the Special Olympics athletes and participants will actually be carrying the Special Olympics torch. And it's the kickoff in a lot of ways for the Special Olympics here. It's done all over the country, but this is the first time that it's actually being held here in Miami Dade county.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: And.
[00:08:03] Speaker C: And so we welcome everyone to come out on the 14th. It starts at 8am and we'll be walking about a mile and just over a half. 1.9.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: 1.9 is what I say.
[00:08:15] Speaker C: And it's all the fundraising. Everything goes straight to the Special Olympics.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: What a great example of service learning and your engagement. So thank you.
[00:08:24] Speaker C: And we have four student organizations that are volunteering their time and participating and making age appropriate activities and such for the athletes. So it's going to be a good time.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: And our college athletes will also be there. So it's going to be a great Saturday. Talk about in criminal justice, how you engage students and have them thinking critically.
[00:08:42] Speaker D: So I agree with the experiences, but we also have for students who it might not be very easy for them to go out into the community and they might have issues with that. We like to also bring in professionals to campus to kind of talk to the students and express them to that. So we've had people from Department of Homeland Security, we've had agents from the dea, we've had local law enforcement come, representatives from the Fusion center down here in Miami. So we've tried to have at least some people coming to campus too to offer that to the students who maybe don't have the ability to roam as freely.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Talk about some of the courses in each of your programs that are most popular. We'll stay with Criminal Justice.
[00:09:25] Speaker D: So in my department we have a lot of intro level CJ classes that tend to be the ones that students will sign up for first. So Intro to Criminal justice, which is CCJ 1020 and Intro to Criminology, CCJ 1010 are kind of our feeder courses.
I always recommend those two to start because I have a lot of students who come to CJ who want to work in the field, but not necessarily sure exactly where. And Intro to CJ kind of gives them an overview of all the different agencies and departments and job careers and fields that there are. So that if some students come in and think I want to be a cop and then they take the class and they learn about the courts and then they change their focus and now maybe they want to go to law school. And so I think it's a really good course to introduce students to the field in criminology, where we study kind of crime and its source. So the source of law and why do societies need laws and what are we going to do with people who violate the law? And it's more of the social aspect of the study of crime. And I think those are two very important classes for our students to take initially.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: That's excellent. What about in your area, Yuli?
[00:10:35] Speaker C: So I'm within the psychology port, and our courses almost feed into one another. So because we have so many students that are not specifically psychology majors or not specifically sociology majors, we. We have a lot of majors coming in to take those introductory courses, but then they feed into the students get excited about the different topics. And so then we have students from there who sign up for social psychology or forensic psychology or the behavioral neuroscience that one of our Professors, our faculty, Dr. Buigas, came up with, and research methodologies, which really applies to all of the social sciences.
So a lot of our courses, students enroll because it's part of gen ed requirements, but then they kind of get excited about the topics, and it feeds into our other courses.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: I think both of you represent areas where students want to be in criminal justice or psychology, but they don't realize the variety and the many different opportunities. And so I think that that's well said. What are some of the pressing issues related to social science education today, and how do we handle them? And we'll start with our wonderful chairperson, because I'm sure she gets a few challenges every once in a while.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Well, I think the biggest challenge that we're facing right now is the state of Florida, right? So there's been a lot of changes to the requirements for social sciences, Specifically sociology is one of those that there's a lot of discussions going around, and psychology is not also immune to that. We have task force in the state of Florida, so there's a lot of, I would say, thoughts about some of the content that we are delivering in the classrooms. And so I think we're all very mindful and passionate about the topics that we teach, right? So I include myself in psychology because that's my background as well. And so there's a lot of discussions right now of whether or not we should be teaching some of the content areas that we're teaching, and how do we teach that content in a way that we're not basically saying that this is the way that it is, but we want our students to still remain very focused on critical thinking. So I think the hot topic for us right now is how do we maintain the integrity of our disciplines, Teach our students what they're intended to be learning without losing or.
We're straddling two worlds, right? We're straddling our discipline, and when we're straddling Some of the requirements that are coming down from the state of Florida, which, again, is something that we all have to work with.
But it's an interesting time, I would say, in the social sciences. But again, I think that we don't lose focus of what we really have to teach our students, which is critical thinking, to really come up with ideas on their own, and we're there to just be that conduit to knowledge. I think with criminal justice, we went through something very similar during the pandemic when the. There were all these political unrest going on and not to get into any politics, but really defund the police and this very negative movement toward law enforcement and the criminal justice, social justice. So we've kind of gone through those growing pains already with criminal justice, and now we see that there's a resurgence back into this field. So we feel that the same will happen with what's going on in the social sciences. No one can negate that. Social sciences is needed, right?
[00:13:55] Speaker A: For sure.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: I mean, we all need to know how to interact with people. We all need to socialize, we all need to interact with groups, we all need to interact with institutions.
So we're not going to go away.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: And the critical thinking, I think, is an important part of that. And I think you make good points that higher education is under the microscope like it's never been. When we were all in school, you went to your programs to do all the things you said, and now we have to carefully traverse that. I think you guys have done a great job at Miami Dade College. I read in the Chronicle at other places across Florida that aren't maybe as successful as we are, but kudos for that. Talk about criminal justice. And then we'll go to psychology, too,
[00:14:32] Speaker D: as far as it's just this how
[00:14:34] Speaker A: you're dealing with some of the social challenges. And we'll stay unpolitical. But I know, you know, it's important, I think that our audience knows that we're still, you know, college is all about opening minds, and they're still doing that.
[00:14:48] Speaker D: I think it is important, and I do think that I'm starting to see in this newer wave of students. So I've been doing this, God, how long now? 13, 14 years.
They do seem more informed when they come in. A lot more of them are getting information, maybe not from the best sources. So that is an issue when it comes to the critical thinking. The idea of being able to parse information and find accurate and reliable information because information is so easily available that they're not really learning how to comb through it and think critically through it. And that has been an issue in class, right. Where a student will come in and tell me about a case and I go, that doesn't make any sense. And they'll show it to me where they found it on the phone. And students have brought me stuff from the Onion, which is a satirical newspaper, and they're very worried about this thing that is not happening.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: The TMZ of news.
[00:15:42] Speaker D: Yeah. Yes. So that I think has been an issue is that it's a double edged sword. I have students who want to be more engaged and more informed and then just trying to provide them access to better information or more accurate.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: It makes it exciting in the classroom. But to your point, it also makes it challenging because you want to vet all these sources. And then with AI coming in, we don't even go there right now.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: Oh, that, yeah, yes, absolutely.
[00:16:05] Speaker C: In terms of psychology, the research reality is we do hit some sensitive topics in our courses. And so one of the big challenges is helping the students to understand how to hear each other out and how to be curious, not judgmental. Because there's times that the topics are so sensitive. You'll have somebody who gets very heated because they read something on social media and they believe it to be true.
And it's. It's difficult to attack multiple issues in that way. So, okay, let's talk about the sources where we're getting this information, and then let's talk about hearing others out, because perhaps they got different information. And so it's exciting to have the conversations in the classroom, but it is a challenge to make sure that they're hearing each other out.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Right, right. Talk about how you stay up to speed on these trends. How do you, both of you stay up with technology, with everything? Because, you know, we're.
[00:17:01] Speaker D: I don't know about technology.
[00:17:02] Speaker B: Come on, Leah. You were teaching on Instagram during the pandemic.
[00:17:07] Speaker D: The pandemic first hit, and we thought we were only going to be out for a week or two. I was doing Instagram live classes.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: You met them where they were?
[00:17:15] Speaker D: I did.
Oh, well, I've been lucky enough. I've been taking advantage of the faculty tuition, programming.
[00:17:24] Speaker C: Oh, me too.
[00:17:25] Speaker D: Yay.
So I try to tell my students that I. I want them to be lifelong learners. And I think part of where I'm able to kind of encourage that more is that I show them that I'm also still taking classes. So I'm currently doing an online program with FSU in their criminology department.
And so I've kind of been able to stay abreast with a lot of stuff, just continuing my own education and taking these classes. And so there's always updated statistics and policy and case law and all of that stuff that I'm able to kind of keep abreast of just through my own coursework. And then, I mean, traditional sources of information, we all watch the news.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Right? Right, right. Okay. What about.
[00:18:05] Speaker C: So in psychology, the basic trends I actually follow through the American Psychological Association, I'm really big on following the trends that are happening nationally because sometimes they're not congruent with what's happening in the state of Florida. And so I'm a big proponent of following the professional associations, but also just within my specific realm of expertise, which is child development.
One of my areas of interest is autism, and it has come back up in common conversation.
And so I took advantage of the tuition reimbursement. And so I enrolled as a certificate program through the Department of Psychiatry at University of Florida. And so I am brushing up on all of my autism research.
And so the students see that when I first told them that I was taking courses, they asked me why?
Why?
And so we talked about the benefits of being a lifelong learner. And even after you finish your doctorate and your postdoc and whatever, it's of interest.
[00:19:10] Speaker D: Right.
[00:19:10] Speaker C: These are things that impact our daily life. And it's important to kind of stay abreast. And so they've kind of appreciated. Every so often they'll ask me questions about my classes and what I'm studying and how hard it is. And they are genuinely surprised to hear me say, like, well, I'm going through the same thing you are.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: Right.
[00:19:30] Speaker C: I can relate to what they're going through.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: That's great, Great answers to that. Let's talk a little bit about collaboration. You know, we've talked about how versatile and your departments and your courses are. Talk about some of the collaborations that we do with other departments on campus,
[00:19:44] Speaker B: I think even within our department, because criminal justice is not social sciences, we do a lot of collaborations. For instance, we have forensic psychology.
And so we do have a cross pollination, so to speak, with our students and our criminal justice. But we often, I don't know if necessarily across departments at the campus, but we also collaborate across the college.
So I know for I can speak about criminal justice, that we have a lot of programming that goes on over at the School of Justice that we're often invited to and we collaborate with.
I'm trying to think of what other collaborations I can't think of.
[00:20:25] Speaker C: So on our end, there's been a bit of a shift. Pre and post pandemic, there was a lot more collaboration that was happening pre pandemic.
So myself and Professor Grimes had put together a project that focused on human trafficking. And we worked together with the English department, had students write poetry about human trafficking. We had the sculpture students create a sculpture on campus. It was like a human trafficking create. Our dance. Students did interpretive dance about it. And so it was a bit easier having so many faculty on campus all the time for us to do those collaborations.
And so since then, what we've done is just adjusted a bit. And so we're actually focusing more on long distance collaborations. For instance, right now, myself and Professor Grimes are actually working with a postdoctoral student at the University of Cincinnati that is one of our alumni. And he is allowing our students to do research based upon his data sets. And so he is actually working with our students. He meets with our students. Professor Grimes and I help formulate the research questions.
And it's all going to come together at this symposium, the Miami Dade College Research Symposium. And some of the students are going to continue that research.
So we have students that are taking the research with them as they transfer, some that are going to do it within their second year.
So we've just modified the way we do collaborations.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: That's great.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: Professor Grimes would kill me if I didn't mention her collaboration with the business department. And so we had a President Innovation grant funded funding for collaboration between our student life skills and contextualizing with business.
That's been an ongoing project for years now with professor ra.
They've collaborated for many years to develop that course. And Professor Grimes actually presented at a national conference last year. And this was also done with AI and how to incorporate technology.
I think through the years we've collaborated in different capacities and I know.
[00:22:28] Speaker C: Yes, yes. So myself and Professor Grimes actually advise multiple organizations.
Psychology Student association, which focuses on general interests in psychology. And we tend to have guest speakers. We have nami, our chapter of the national organization of nami. And those students are focusing on mental health issues. And so they get certifications in suicide awareness, things like that.
And Psi Beta, which is the honor society for psychology in two year institutions.
And we work with the other campuses that have Psi Beta chapters and do collaborative research with them. And so there's been a couple research projects that they've actually been able to submit to Psi Beta national that is really cross collaboration between the campuses.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: I think you just named one of our future podcasts that we need to have some students on and talk about those two or three.
[00:23:22] Speaker C: Oh, it sounds fantastic.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: Let's talk next about some of the opportunities for internships. And you mentioned research projects and community partnerships. What are some of the other unique things that we do?
[00:23:32] Speaker C: So in terms of psychology, we're really big on working with our alumni. So we have a lot, a lot of alumni contacts. And so, for instance, the postdoc at University of Cincinnati is one of our alumni, and so he's working with research. We have another alumni that was actually running a counseling center center in Doral, and she actually came in and did a presentation and our students were able to intern with her. So we tend to reach out to our alumni to get opportunities for our students because we do have limited resources here in terms of research and in terms of being able to have students do internships. So the way that we've compensated for it is using the students that have worked with us in the past. And they're so excited and so happy to come back and speak to our students and offer these different opportunities because they remember being in that situation.
And so I can speak for myself and Professor Grimes. We're really big on working with our alumni.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: That's great. In terms of criminal justice, I know you have a lot of students that probably want to transfer to other institutions, talk about some of their paths when they come to you, because I know you open their eyes and. And they go all different ways.
[00:24:44] Speaker D: So we've had quite a few students go on to law school. Those are like, I feel like a proud mama there.
What's great is that at Kendall, for the social sciences that houses us, there's three full time faculty that teach criminal justice. And we all come from a different background. So Professor Schwanner comes from more of a sociology, criminology background, more academic.
Dr. Buckles comes from law enforcement. She was a major, I think, at Miami.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: I want to say she was also responsible for sexual assault.
[00:25:14] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. She worked in the special victims unit. So she comes with a very practical law enforcement side. And then I come from more of the legal perspective. And so we all have students who have gone on to do stuff in all of these different areas that we're all very proud of. So I have a lot of students who have gone on to law school. I just had my first student reach out to me that she passed the bar exam.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Congratulations.
[00:25:35] Speaker D: So that's great. We also have students who are currently working in law enforcement. And I think it's so great how you have students coming back. And I've been lucky enough to have a few too, who will come and talk to students. And it's a very different type of engagement when I'm telling them a story or when a former student who comes in, like, dressed in his uniform is telling them about the job. We also have students who now currently work in corrections. So we've had students who have run the gamut in their careers and. And I think the most inspiring thing is to have a student where in front of you it clicks what they want to do and what they go on to do with their career. But I always tell my students, like, I had a lot of stops and starts to my career and it was a long and winding road to get to where I am. And so, you know, when they're 18, 19, 20 years old, sometimes they look at me and they go, I have no idea. And I said, that's fine too. Yeah.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: They always think that first job is so important. It's really just a means to.
We all four of us have had different paths.
[00:26:30] Speaker C: Different paths, yes.
[00:26:31] Speaker B: And not necessarily the paths that we
[00:26:33] Speaker D: thought we were going to take.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: So being open to those experiences, we
[00:26:36] Speaker A: made mistakes and, you know, and we're now in the right spot, all of us.
Let's talk about some advice you'd give students that are considering studying the social science. We'll talk with you, Chairperson Ayers. What would advice you give then? We'll go to psychology and criminal justice on advice.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: So it's funny because I think that we often think about career, career, career, career. What am I going to do? How am I going to make money?
The advice that I always give students is your personal goals must align with your professional goals.
[00:27:03] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: And so we often don't even think about our personal goals. So if I'm the kind of person that doesn't like to travel.
[00:27:10] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: I shouldn't be looking to become a flight attendant. And so the advice that I always give my students is don't think about, don't put your personal side aside because it really plays a critical role in how successful you're going to be with that career.
Obviously, I'm going to push psychology.
I'm biased.
[00:27:30] Speaker C: Clearly.
[00:27:30] Speaker D: Clearly.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: And I always think about. Just like we've discussed already, when you take a class with me, I want you to at least leave with a little bit more of knowledge than when you entered, even if you don't love the topic, but at least that you learned something. And so the advice that I always give them is take each class and find what you can use from that class for life.
We're not always going to take topics that we enjoy. We're not going to take classes that we enjoy. But there's always going to be something in there that's going to be a lesson for your life and how can you use that?
[00:28:01] Speaker A: So that's good. That's well said.
[00:28:03] Speaker C: What about psychology in terms of psychology? Honestly, I very often am telling the students not everything is what it seems. A lot of students come into psychology courses with the preconceived notion that we have a sofa in our office like Freud and we read minds and that they're going to talk about. Yeah, that they're going to about talk. Talk about how mom messed them up.
And so I explained to them not everything as it seems. And it's not always the way that we're taught in elementary school where every job has a very specific title that everyone knows. Sometimes our career choices lead us to jobs that don't have a title that everyone is familiar with. And so it's really kind of them. Understanding not everything is classic clear cut as it seems. If something seems interesting, really look into it more. And I encourage students, come to my office, I'll sit with you. I we've gone through various different areas related to psychology where I'm working with students to figure out schools that are good for them to transfer to because, well, hey, they can look into this a little bit further. And they do get really excited because there's things that they're interested in that they didn't know they could make a profession out of.
And so they started to learn like, oh, I could do this. So that's a job.
I remember taking a child development course. It was an infancy course when I was in school.
I was an undergrad. I had just come out of Miami Dade, I had just transferred and I remember taking that course and thinking, wait a minute, so I can play with babies and someone will pay me for it.
And that is absolutely my favorite area. And so I just tell the students, just kind of be open. Not everything is what it seems. Sometimes it's a little bit more vague. But if you stick with it and you follow what you really like, right, like that personal side of you follow what you're really interested in and we can figure it out.
[00:29:54] Speaker A: You said something really important that I hope our students will go to our faculty's office hours, I think something that we don't take advantage of. They're so afraid to come see us.
[00:30:04] Speaker C: Well, so I do have the benefit of, I have a very busy office. Office, and I love you all. Please keep coming.
But the. We have a pretty unique space at Miami Dade College because we have cubicles, not offices.
[00:30:19] Speaker A: Right.
[00:30:21] Speaker C: And so, you know, we're on the downside. It's a little bit retro.
The upside is we get to communicate while we're working with students. So next door to my office is Professor Williams, and I cannot emphasize enough how much he and I work with students together.
And so we have students in our office all the time. We're working on the research statements for transfer. We're working on applications for Jack Kent Hook for Barry Goldwater. So I do get a lot of visitors. And again, please keep coming.
So it just gives you a different perspective in terms of working with students. It makes us more personal. It makes us so much more approachable. So then when they talk to us about their careers, it makes it a little easier for them to talk about their apprehensions, their worries. Oh, what if I go away and I don't like it?
And just having them come to the office hours and being more personal with them and being more approachable actually makes those conversations easier.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: That's great. That's great. What about you, Professor Sheaf? What would you want students to know and take away?
[00:31:30] Speaker D: I feel like they took all the good answers.
[00:31:33] Speaker A: You've got one. I know it's coming right now.
[00:31:35] Speaker D: No, but I definitely. I encourage them to be open. I know what it's like to sit in a classroom and be studying a topic and think that this is what I'm going to do and this is going to be my career, and then also at the same time going, this isn't what I want to do.
So just to be open to what they're learning and what they're seeing. And I think that for my students, most of them know they want to do criminal justice, but just aren't really sure of the avenue.
[00:31:58] Speaker B: So.
[00:31:58] Speaker D: So it's just kind of talking to them about my experience and what I've seen.
I definitely know the same thing where we have students coming to see us as well. Talking to Dr. Buchholz about her career in law enforcement. What is it actually like? What is a day in the life of law enforcement? What is a day in the life of a law student? I know a lot of students who are scared about becoming lawyers because they don't want to go through the law school.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: Too many TV shows, too, for you,
[00:32:22] Speaker D: probably, and studying for the bar and stuff. So for the students who come to me, it's Mostly anxiety about test preparation for the lsat. What is law school really going to be like?
How hard is the bar?
So hard, but doable. And they don't talk to me so much about, like the actual career because they're so focused on the barriers to that. And so I try to talk to them about, well, what do you want to do as a lawyer? What kind of law are you interested in? And kind of opening them up to, to all the different avenues. Because criminal justice is really just one avenue of law. And I think that for the students that I have that study criminal justice, my biggest piece of advice is to be open minded to the sense that they like to see things, everything as binary. It's this or it's that. And I try to tell them that the best criminal defense attorneys are trained to think like prosecutors and the best prosecutors are trained to think like criminal defense lawyers. You have to be able to approach a problem from both sides. Sides. Alternate perspectives, alternate points of view. And I think that, you know, students who come in very certain about anything, when they start to look at it from a different perspective, I think that's the best piece of advice that I can leave them with.
[00:33:29] Speaker A: And as I hear you talk, I think about the psychology of everything you just said and how they link together.
So that's a great answer. And I have to ask you one question. What's your favorite TV show that relates to that? What? Or maybe not realistic. I know there's some, you know, you go back to Ally McBeal, but what? Tell me, tell me, tell me what?
[00:33:47] Speaker C: That's going way back.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: I can go back.
[00:33:48] Speaker D: I think the best they're all going to say, like suits and Criminal Minds. That's the wrong answer.
[00:33:53] Speaker A: Suits is awesome, sure. But not the way we're talking.
[00:33:57] Speaker D: No, but mine is Law and the classic, not the spinoffs, SVU or critical intent. The original, the original OG Jack McCoy. And I really did use Law and Order when I was in law school. It helped me in my classes because it gave me something active to watch and then apply what I knew.
Most of what they do on the show is wrong and so they're not
[00:34:18] Speaker A: allowed medical shows and.
[00:34:20] Speaker D: But it would reinforce what I was learning. So actually in one of my criminal law classes, we do a Law and Order type assignment and they have to watch an episode and then critique.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: Well, you think illegally blind. You think of all the shows. Yeah.
[00:34:30] Speaker D: Oh, and if we have time, my cousin Vinnie's one of the great.
[00:34:34] Speaker B: Oh, that is a classic.
[00:34:35] Speaker D: I love it. It's Actually really good when it comes to, like, legal procedure and stuff. Like, they had a really good lawyer on set.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: I think you'll laugh at me. Have you ever watched the Lincoln Lawyer?
[00:34:44] Speaker D: Of course I have. I'm on the new season. Don't spoil it. I only two episodes.
[00:34:48] Speaker A: I'm one. I just started the first one. Okay.
[00:34:50] Speaker B: But we talk about the podcast, too. Cause there's so many good ones out
[00:34:54] Speaker D: there now, all the true crime podcasts.
[00:34:58] Speaker C: And then they come to us with anxiety.
[00:35:00] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:35:01] Speaker A: Well, for those listening, if you can't tell that these two ladies have an amazing class, you should sign up for them and all their colleagues.
Thank you both for being here today, all three of you being here today. We like to turn the microphone around on me if you'd like. I'll try to answer any question you want to ask.
[00:35:15] Speaker D: So when are you doing barbecue for the social sciences department?
[00:35:19] Speaker A: Well, all you have to do is give me a reason and something to celebrate and we'll do it. I haven't done one in a few weeks now, so it's about time.
[00:35:26] Speaker D: It's about time.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: So let's do one.
[00:35:28] Speaker C: I love it.
So in your grand scheme, like, what is your picture? What's your vision for the kids campus?
[00:35:36] Speaker A: So we're getting ready to open the new AI floor in the building 6.
[00:35:41] Speaker B: Our building.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: Which you're building. Our building.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: We're our building.
[00:35:43] Speaker C: Yes. Yes. We're all very familiar with the construction.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, my gosh.
[00:35:47] Speaker C: You're on.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: You're on the second floor. No.
[00:35:50] Speaker C: Oh, yes.
[00:35:50] Speaker D: We're on the floor.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: We're both on the second floor. And it's been tough.
[00:35:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: And actually I teach a pre calculus class in the morning at 7am and it's been tough to teach that a few times. But I. I really think building six is going to kind of reshape the core of the campus as we move some of those people off the third floor into there. We're getting ready to build a 25, actually probably a $40 million STEM building that will hopefully connect building six to building two. So I really think the heart of our campus is going to kind of center around us. And so I'm excited to see how that looks. The legislature's funded us a good portion of that, and we've asked for the rest of it this session, and I think we'll get it. And we're already in design phases, so we're going to see a big change. The fortunate thing is that construction won't be on our. It'll be next to it, so we won't.
[00:36:35] Speaker B: But that's five years. Five years.
[00:36:37] Speaker A: Well, probably.
[00:36:38] Speaker C: He might solicit a psychology research lab in that STEM building there.
[00:36:42] Speaker A: Okay, that's a great. That's a great.
[00:36:44] Speaker C: We might push for that.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:36:45] Speaker A: Okay. That's a great idea.
[00:36:46] Speaker D: Forensics lab.
[00:36:48] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
Anything you'd like to ask me?
[00:36:52] Speaker B: What has been the most rewarding experience being here at Kendall? Because I know you came from the Medical campus, which is quite different from here, so what has been very different.
[00:37:03] Speaker A: You know, I spent my whole time in Texas in campuses like this. I opened two campuses from the ground floor. But what's been the most rewarding thing is having psychology back and sociology and math and English, and our honors students, and even our students who don't know what they want to do that are struggling in what used to be developmental education.
I really forgotten how much I missed that, being at Medical for six and a half years.
My DNA is in faculty, and that's what I love about this place. And just walking the campus today, seeing our students, and this is a vibrant campus. I know that the pandemic impacted a lot of higher education, but I think Kendall is right where it should be, and others should be mirroring us, I think.
[00:37:46] Speaker C: I agree, yes. My colleagues at other campuses might not,
[00:37:49] Speaker B: But I agree 100%.
[00:37:51] Speaker A: We're at Kendall, and that's where it matters right now. Right.
[00:37:54] Speaker C: It's not bragging if it's true.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: It's not bragging if it's true. That's right. Well, thank you all for being here today. This has been a great conversation. I want to thank Christina Saenz, our head writer, Paul Klein, our executive producer, and Alex Bellows, our producer. Thank you for being with us, and goodbye for now.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: Sam.
