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Liz Kay
Hello and welcome to the Providence College podcast, I'm your host, Liz Kay, and I'm joined by producer Chris Judge of the class of 2005 here on the Providence College podcast, we bring you interesting stories from the friar family. This week, we're talking with Dr. Wanda Ingram, the senior associate dean for undergraduate studies, the freshman and sophomore class dean

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Liz Kay
and co-chair of the MLK Convocation Committee. This is a special year to talk with Dr. Ingram as we're celebrating the 50th anniversary of women enrolling as undergrads. Dr. Ingram was a member of the inaugural class to include women in 1971.

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Liz Kay
Dr. Ingram, thanks so much for joining us.

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Wanda Ingram
Thank you.

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Liz Kay
So we're talking the week before MLK Day, and I just hoped you could give us a quick overview of the plans for MLK Convocation, which will be held on Thursday, January 20th. All right.

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Wanda Ingram
Well, we've asked our initial guest speaker, which was Dr. Bernice King, who was our first inaugural person to present at our first MLK convocation, and she has agreed to come back and to bring one of her partners, her body, that she has done an awful lot up online with.

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Wanda Ingram
And that is Dr. Shabazz, who was the daughter of Malcolm X, and we are expecting a fantastic dialog between those two ladies. They are activists, their authors, their leaders and visionaries, and they're able to give some credit where credit is due in reference to how they were raised by their mothers.

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Wanda Ingram
After some things that have happened in both cases with the loss of their fathers and how they have looked out for our beloved community and how they achieved in reference to looking at things to a different job. I would say different eyes referenced how they kind of approach life in general.

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Wanda Ingram
In addition to having them here, it's going to be kind of a short day only because between Cogan and all the other things that are happening, the time has been moved up a little bit as well. But we're looking forward to having them have a discussion back and forth with regards to, you know, just the whole aspect

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Wanda Ingram
of what the vision is all about. And then we're going to have a fireside chat and one of our students will be able to help us with that, that particular process just to get some popular and some questions that a lot of folks have with regards to how these two ladies grew up in this community, this world

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Wanda Ingram
that we live in right now and what they see is what the future holds in reference to what's going on with the movement and activities, et cetera. Then we have a book signing that's going to happen at the very end as part of our quick reception with COVID.

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Wanda Ingram
It may be a quick one, but at least we'll get a chance to spend some time in here. A few things from both ladies, from their different perspectives.

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Liz Kay
That sounds like it's going to be a really dynamic conversation and how apropos this year with the 50th anniversary of women to talk about the leadership of women during the civil rights movement and leading up to today, right?

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Wanda Ingram
Right? Yeah.

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Liz Kay
What are some of the other events that are planned for convocation month in February? Because the celebration or the commemoration is going to carry through for another couple of weeks?

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Wanda Ingram
And as always, we will always have what we call a candlelight vigil, which will occur in our chapel. But before then, we also ask people on the campus to nominate individuals and reference to what's called the Vision Awards.

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Wanda Ingram
And we try to have a short reception for that as well. Those who have contributed to community and been excellent representatives of our beloved community, so that will be occurring both on February 16th. And then there's the other aspect of student involvement, and that's called MLK be the change, and that's joining and exploring different things with regards

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Wanda Ingram
to the visionary advocacy being leaders in communities, things that students have contributed. That one is still a little bit under under construction, shall we say, because we're trying to figure out the best way of doing this with regards to maybe some COVID restrictions, et cetera.

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Wanda Ingram
But we still will be having it, which I'm very glad because at first we really weren't sure what was going to be happening.

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Liz Kay
I think there's still a lot of uncertainty now for so many things, unfortunately, and we're still having in this country, we're still having so many tough conversations. And here in our country, on our campus about diversity, equity and inclusion, what are you hoping people from the Providence College community will gain from the MLK convocation events this year

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Wanda Ingram
? Awareness of where they're coming from. I think as people keep having their well, I've described them as I watched the news temper tantrums in reference to their rights with this and their rights with that in reference to inoculations, et cetera.

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Wanda Ingram
Instead of taking a few steps back and realizing that everyone's going through some kinds of changes and turmoil and whatever. And why don't we spend a little bit more energy on how we can make some changes that will benefit us all?

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Wanda Ingram
It's my global way of looking at it.

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Liz Kay
Well, Providence College was definitely undergoing some changes when you joined the community in 1971. Can you tell us what led you to to come to Providence College? What led you to choose to be part of that, that innovative, pioneering class of women?

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Wanda Ingram
I was going to be a science major and was I am from I'm a military brat and in Newport, I would say the majority of male teachers that I had in my high school, Rogers were all graduates of Providence College, it seemed like, and the school was about to go coed, and it was strongly recommended by just

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Wanda Ingram
about everybody in the city that I go ahead and apply to that institution. Although I was, I had my heart set on a couple of other places at first. But when I came to visit the institution and I kept hearing, Well, this is the first year women, but this is what we're planning on doing.

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Wanda Ingram
This is what we're looking for. This is what we're striving for. We want you to be one of those individuals that makes a difference and makes a change. It caught me and I realized, OK, let let me go ahead, even though there were maybe 270 women and 2000 plus males that were on the campus.

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Wanda Ingram
I mean, that's something that some people would say would be also good information as well from that perspective. But in reference to just the challenges that were there, I was very happy with the fact that being a chemistry major and they had master's and doctoral degrees in reference to it.

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Wanda Ingram
I thought, OK, you know what, if I do well in this particular major, I can go far with regards to it. So it just it just checked off all the right boxes at the time.

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Liz Kay
So you were a chemistry major and there were graduate and doctoral students. But how many of the students in the sciences where women.

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Wanda Ingram
two of us?

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Liz Kay
So two of 200, almost 300 students?

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Wanda Ingram
Yeah, exactly. So I mean, everybody knew where you were in the building. No problem there. I never felt unsafe. You always had the chivalry that was going on all the time with folks looking out for you, which was great, too.

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Wanda Ingram
So just as being a novelty as it was and then as a as a woman, a black woman in an institution like this where there were very few of us, they were like, I think maybe twelve women total out of that group that came that first year with us.

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Wanda Ingram
There were some transitions that occurred out for obvious reasons just after the civil rights movement, et cetera, et cetera. But there were a lot of teaching moments, let's put it that.

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Liz Kay
So let's dig into this a little bit more, please. There were about 280 women that enrolled that first year, and only twelve of them were women of color. How did the college help you with that transition to college life?

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Wanda Ingram
Well, we started off with us coming in the summer prior to school beginning and to be honest with you, with with Bob and Morris and Dr. McKay, who were running the program itself to the Martin Luther King Scholarship program, which is what that was part of.

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Wanda Ingram
I was quite insulted at first because I kept thinking, Well, I'm on nearly all straight-A student. Why? Why do I need to come? Because I'm thinking of it as being remedial work with regards to my academics, not realizing that there's a whole process that one goes through with regards to just relating to an institution from other ways

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Wanda Ingram
. So it turned out to be one of the best things that could have possibly happened. We developed a sense of community. We got to know people on campus and off campus not only, you know, folks of color because the majority of us were African-Americans at that time, but just to feel connected as a part of a strong

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Wanda Ingram
community. Because remember, we didn't have cell phones and the media and whatever to be able to make connections with one another and social media, et cetera. So you needed to make those connections one on one. And it gave us an opportunity to do that during the summer so that by the time school started, we realized there were

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Wanda Ingram
a lot of students that felt, you know, that they were really at a disadvantage because they didn't know anyone. They didn't know their way around. And here we are actually feeling like the experts in reference to being able to show folks where to go, who to see, how to talk with different individuals, et cetera.

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Wanda Ingram
So it really did help us to make that transition a lot better.

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Liz Kay
So you mentioned Father Morris and Dr. Dr. McKay, could you tell us more about them and some of the other people who helped you succeed at PC?

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Wanda Ingram
Well, those were the two that even when I came to visit in the before even school began and I was looking at different colleges. Those were the two that convinced me that this was a good place to come.

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Wanda Ingram
Father Maurice, of course, he had a handshake that would break your hand. But other than that, he was kind of we all kind of considered him our adopted father because he knew and was aware of everything if we had problems or questions or whatever.

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Wanda Ingram
We would always find our way to him. Dr. McKay, who was my other mentor, he was a chemistry professor. On top of that, even though I did not have him for class. But he was always there and convinced me to serve on the MLK Scholarship Committee as a student representative as well.

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Wanda Ingram
So he helped me with all of my different leadership, types of skills and what I learned by the Mars was just there for everybody. And so he was considered our adoptive father and father.

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Liz Kay
Morris and Dr. McKay were two of the four people who really got the MLK scholarship program going on that have been honored as Vision Award recipients themselves. Which is which is phenomenal. Do you have any? I'm curious how you feel about it, MLK Day, or if you reflect on this connection, I mean, there was there they were

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Liz Kay
inspired by Dr. King, so inspired by Dr. King to start this program at Providence College. I feel like there's got to be a connection there for you or a special way to remember Dr. King. If it were not for that scholarship program, would you have come to Providence College?

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Liz Kay
Probably not.

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Wanda Ingram
Probably not. And it's funny that you ask me that question, I never really had thought of it that way, but the answer came out quick enough. Yeah.

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Liz Kay
So what brought you back to Providence College many years later?

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Wanda Ingram
The 75th Anniversary Committee, I served on that one because Father Quigley, who was our chaplain back then, so he was another one that was very close to our population of students while I was a student here. He convinced me to at least think about the possibility of coming back to PC.

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Wanda Ingram
I was working and I mean, commuting to Massachusetts, living in Rhode Island, I had a young family baby and he just said all the right things and kept talking about, Well, we don't have a real academic dean for freshman students, and I understand you, you all of your work is about that whole aspect of transitions as a

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Wanda Ingram
therapist, as one who oversees student organizations and so on and so forth. Would you be interested in this position that we're developing? And I said, what does it look like? And next thing I know we're having conversations about what it should look like.

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Wanda Ingram
And now I'm realizing, OK, I think I'm helping to write my own job description here. But needless to say, came in applied for an interview. Dr. McKay and all the other individuals I already knew, among others, and realized it was going to be a good fit.

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Wanda Ingram
It was plenty to be done here.

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Liz Kay
And I'm sure that a job has evolved considerably as its balloon ballooned is the best way to describe it. So if you're just thinking about your own work in the last two years, you've been doing this work since you arrived.

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Liz Kay
And forgive me, when when did you arrive a return to Providence College?

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Wanda Ingram
1990.

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Liz Kay
It's been a minute. Yes.

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Wanda Ingram
While I said I'm here, maybe about five years, I lied.

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Liz Kay
You know, we were talking about how your job has evolved and ballooned. But I'm sure these last two years particularly have been a challenge being the understatement, of course. How has your work helping first, your students and their families get adjusted to college life changed as a result of the pandemic?

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Liz Kay
What were some of the biggest challenges and what have been some of the it could not have been bad. Were there any things that you think going forward you might change that might change for the better?

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Wanda Ingram
Because it's still evolving, it's kind of a hard question to answer right now. I mean, I think we're kind of making this up as we go along. Folks had said when the pandemic hit that to come up with the vaccine, and this shorter turnaround time was virtually impossible.

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Wanda Ingram
And yet here we are, and we're talking about boosters and understanding how that particular virus has evolved even again. So I see this is a work in progress. There is a lot of things that we haven't really realized yet in reference to the fallout from what students have gone through being sequestered during high school and then being

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Wanda Ingram
sequestered while being here on the campus. The the whole aspect of becoming a community is a little bit different because I think that with cell phones and being up on social media and the whole digital identity, that it's a different kind of animal than what I was accustomed to when I arrived at college.

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Wanda Ingram
And we're not quite sure when I, as I teach in student development theory at the graduate level and I speak with my students, we're not quite sure yet exactly what it is that we're going to have to kind of work on because it is still definitely evolving.

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Wanda Ingram
It's because it's not over yet.

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Liz Kay
Everything is still in flux.

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Wanda Ingram
It's still in flux and the lack of control, I think for everybody, I think it's getting to even the adults and the grown ups, the old folks as well, including yours, truly in reference to trying to cope with because there's so much beyond our control.

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Wanda Ingram
It just makes you uncomfortable and trying to explain that to students when we don't have the answers for ourselves. Not always. It's not always easy.

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Liz Kay
In 2001, you and your colleague Jackie McCabe published a guide for families called Let the Journey Begin a Parent's Guide Monthly Guide for to the college experience. What are some of the bits of advice that you shared in that book that you feel remain true today for today's families?

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Wanda Ingram
Well, having families understand that there is a process that students go through and that they can't solve everything for their sons and daughters, I think it's always been that common message that still rings true. And even with COVID and even with our parents that are trying to trying to plow the road a little bit more in reference

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Wanda Ingram
to the I think of them sometimes as the snow plows because they're trying to clear all the snow and ice off the ground before their child walks through. And that's not necessarily going to be the thing that's going to help them benefit the most from this growth and the whole process.

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Wanda Ingram
Sometimes you have to kind of slip and slide a little bit. And that was the case back then when we wrote the book, and it's still the case right now. It's just not biblical proportions, I would say, in reference to some of the things that they're trying to cope with.

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Wanda Ingram
But it's still, I mean, I think it's pretty much pretty consistent. But as the parents are not quite sure how best to deal with these kinds of things right now, even for themselves. So I tell parents, be as honest as you possibly can.

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Wanda Ingram
Don't speak for Johnny or Susie or whomever. Let them talk and we'll try to work on it together and we'll pull you in. But we need to, first and foremost, have those kinds of difficult conversations and dialogs with the child and then help them kind of figure it out and they can bounce those kinds of things off

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Wanda Ingram
of you. And that's part of the whole value system that I think we have to kind of reinforce with the parents, too.

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Liz Kay
That the parents are support, but not they're not speaking on behalf of their child.

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Wanda Ingram
Exactly. Yeah. And was Colgan and whatever. I found that parents were kind of getting back to that. Well, I will ask, Well, where's Johnny or where's Susie or Amanda? Who or whatever it is? Well, they're busy right now.

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Wanda Ingram
Well, I'm glad they're busy, but we need I need to have that conversation with students and we can talk with you afterwards. But we need to have that conversation together because yeah, and it's getting back to even 911 once again, which I think kind of started a lot of this in reference to protecting your child.

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Wanda Ingram
And as a parent and a grandparent, I understand that fully, but we have to allow them to grow. And the only way that that's going to happen is with some some challenges in development.

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Liz Kay
But each one of those challenges is practice for when they go off to be, you know, full grown adults themselves one day, right? Right.

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Wanda Ingram
Exactly. And you're not always going to have all the right answers and that will be fine with this might take some time.

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Liz Kay
So one before I let you go, I can't resist asking you about your creative side. I'm sure many people, many alumni have come through your office and had may not have even known about all the work you do on your own, and I'm hoping you can tell us how that helped you through the pandemic as well.

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Liz Kay
Can you tell us about some of your creative endeavors?

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Wanda Ingram
I have an art background, and originally when I started talking about college, I was thinking about going to art school instead of a regular liberal arts institution or science institution as well. Even though I could do the chemistry and whatever, I've always done artwork as well.

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Wanda Ingram
But my mother, I think, made it very clear and she was absolutely right, especially as a military wife where, you know, they're just just the facts, ma'am, kind of kind of way of of raising your child as well.

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Wanda Ingram
You only like to do your artwork when you want to do it, so you're probably not going to eat a whole lot because you're not going to get, oh, you're not going to get paid because there are certain times when you don't want to do anything artistic at all.

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Wanda Ingram
And she was absolutely right. So I tell my students all the time, we have a lot of abilities, but some things we're going to find that they're going to go down the path of being extracurriculars instead. And that's fine because that's what keeps you keeps your level in reference to dealing with all the other negative things at

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Wanda Ingram
times. And I'm a perfect example of that. I mean, I do a little bit of this and that all the time I I do a lot of sewing. I've made many costumes for my granddaughter and anyone who walks in my office will see all of the different outfits that she's I mean, Disney has nothing on me in

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Wanda Ingram
reference to some of the things that I have been able to make. And it's wonderful. I make a lot of jewelry. A lot of folks are wearing a lot of the things that I have made. I make a lot of cards, especially chocolate cards, because the the science of physics and how they pop up the angles, I'm

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Wanda Ingram
fascinated by that. So I make a lot of three dimensional types of cards. I do a lot of glass etching. I do a lot of wood burning. So those are the kinds of things that have really kept me level in reference to just coping with things and watching less TV and doing more artistic activities.

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Wanda Ingram
I have a studio in my house which is moved from that one bedroom, but now to so it has started to take over.

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Liz Kay
But but I'm glad to hear that your passions have so much real estate in your home.

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Wanda Ingram
That suggested they do.

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Liz Kay
one. It's been wonderful chatting with you today. Thank you so much for joining us.

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Wanda Ingram
Thank you for your patience and your time. You take care.

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Liz Kay
Subscribe to the Providence College podcast in all the usual places, including iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play and Spotify, as well as your smart speakers. If you like what you hear. Please review and share with others. Thanks for listening and go.

00;20;39;15 - 00;20;39;28
Liz Kay
Writers.