The Interview

For my interview, it was hard to ask about the day that I shadowed my mentor. There was not much to ask about the day that I shadowed him because most of it was taking care of the speaker, Amon Rashidi, whom he already knew. So, that day, he was not in the office after 12pm, like he normally would be.


Q: What is your mission as a Student Success Coordinator?
A: To aid in the retention and graduation of students of color at Arizona State University

Q: You said that you and Amon Rashidi, the speaker for AAMASU’s presentation last week, had a common mentor. Can you go into detail about his teachings and how that led both of you to be on similar paths of life, which eventually crossed?
A: Every year for the past 30 years my mentor takes a group of kids on a tour of Egypt. The group ranges from 20 students to 100 students and he takes them on an educational tour in the Nile Valley and teaches about the origins of the civilizations there. He is one the few scholars that are dedicated to teaching about the origins of the Nile Valley and helping to disprove the myth that outsiders came to Africa and built the pyramids and built the great civilizations in Africa, mainly Egypt. He also shares about the legacies that have been taken from Africa and utilized by the world. Basically the tour is to educate and to show the young men and women about their heritage and legacy that they possess but are not taught about.

Q: In class earlier in the semester you said that you had a military mentor can you tell about his philosophy and teachings?
A: He runs a private school called the New World Learning Center and I used to teach there. He used the states normal teaching curriculum and adapted it to the teachers skill set. For the students, they had school plus a summer and winter camp that included military skills such as using a map, compass and outdoor survival tactics.

Q: With your leadership style of Jeet Kune Do, what would you do to motivate a person that seemingly has no ambition at all, that normally would be seen as a lost case?
A: There is no formula that you can follow to get someone to do something. In general, if they don’t want to do something, then they won’t. But the strategy is to find a way to get the person to identify with the organization or an issue, and see themselves as a positive impact on the organization or issue. Most people have a passion about something and you have to find a way to incorporate that to get the person positively involved.

Q: What is your role for getting the speakers and presenters for BAC organizations?
A: I meet a lot of people in the industry from my travels because I travel constantly to conferences and have been in leadership and involved nationally in so many organizations. Because of that I am usually the contact person and I introduce them to whichever organization is in need of their field of expertise.

Q What is the strategy for being responsible for advising so many different organizations?
A: What I do is I get the students to brainstorm ideas of what program or project they want to do. I make sure they are informed on all the policies and procedures, risk factors and ASU entities that they need to be aware of to undertake the project successfully and in accordance with all the rules that must be followed. I also make sure that their plan is realistic monetarily for the budget that they have. For student advising, I am basically an institutional liaison. Anything that you want from ASU, you can come to me and I will be able to get in contact with the right person and get the problem resolved faster than you would be able to yourself. So if you needed a tutor, you could come to my office and I will get you a tutor. The same goes for financial problems or anything else that you want to talk to the university about, you can come to my office and we can get you situated.