From Mentee to Mentor to Role Model
Closing out National Mentoring Month and reading so many great mentorship stories, I’ve been thinking about some of the great mentoring relationships I’ve seen throughout my career advocating for young women in tech. The story of Rian and the mentors along her path always makes me smile and gives me a renewed sense of possibility.
I initially learned about Rian Walker in 2013 when she received the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Computing for the State of Mississippi. I’ve been following her journey ever since and continue to be inspired, both by Rian’s persistence and passion for educational equity, and by the mentors who have supported her along the way.
The Picture of Grit
Rian was a high potential student who very nearly fell through the cracks. Raised by her grandfather since early childhood, Rian’s world fell out from under her when he passed away suddenly in 2009. After his death, she was placed with her biological father, who had never been a consistent part of her life. Her grades, which had been very good in elementary and middle school, began to decline. She missed 86 classes during her freshman year of high school, leaving her father’s home multiple times, and often had no place to live. As a teen she walked and ran all over the coastal cities of Mississippi on her own. Throughout those years she was placed in both a mental health hospital and a youth detention center, but nonetheless, she maintained her interest in computing and taught herself to program in multiple languages. She put her tech skills to use to support herself, purchasing old phones on E-Bay, refurbishing and reselling them.
A Mentor with a Mission
Her high school counselor, Karen Gifford, took a special interest in Rian and was able to get her registered under the McKinney-Vento Act as an unaccompanied minor. She was the person who encouraged Rian to apply for the NCWIT Aspirations in Computing her final year of high school. Despite being four hours away, Mrs. Gifford and Rian got up in the wee hours that day in March 2013 to drive from the southern coast to the regional award event at Mississippi State University. At the event Rian met Dr. Sarah Lee, a former IT employee at FedEx Corporation, who had recently joined the MSU faculty with a passion for engaging more women on computing pathways.
A Pivotal Moment
Following the award event, Sarah immediately reached out to Rian to encourage her to apply to MSU to study computer science and helped her get admitted. Just 8 days after that fateful day, I received an NCWIT AspireIT grant application from Rian and Sarah to launch Bulldog Bytes, a program to engage middle school girls in computer science and cyber security. That mini-grant not only launched a multi-year CS education initiative that has served more than 500 Mississippi students, it also created a summer job and place to live for Rian for the few months before starting college.
Rian jumped into her role as a computer science undergrad including research projects, conferences and much more.
From Student to Family
Rian became more than a student for Sarah. She joined the Lee family for holiday celebrations, and Sarah’s family members and friends donated to a scholarship fund for Rian. The first summer and fall, Rian spent hours in Sarah’s office telling stories of her past. Rian needed to tell those stories in order to begin a path towards healing. Sarah listened and offered words of encouragement. Over time the hours they spent together became fewer. Sarah missed Rian when she stopped coming by so often, but knew this was a sign that she was becoming more self-confident in her college career.
Paying It Forward
While at MSU, Rian and Sarah co-founded the Bulldog Bytes computing outreach program. Starting with one camp for middle school girls in 2013, the program has grown to receive national recognition and offers camps for K-12 boys and girls across Mississippi. Bulldog Bytes also offers CS and cybersecurity professional development to K-12 teachers and has offered special programs to the public like a technical workshop for senior citizens and a programming workshop for persons with low vision and blindness.
A Role Model for Others
Today Rian is a business analyst working on technology used by millions of customers for a major financial institution in Charlotte, NC. As a young professional, she is focused on her job, but she continues to support and encourage other young women coming up in the pipeline – including welcoming the new class of NCWIT Aspirations in Computing members joining her company and community.
She is an ardent advocate of equity in computer science education and an example of the powerful impact mentors and sponsors can have on the trajectory of a young person.
Rian Walker holds a degree in Software Engineering from Mississippi State University and is employed as a Business Analyst at Bank of America. She was a 2013 NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Regional Winner and National Runner-up. She represented NCWIT at the 2013 White House Science Fair, hosted by President Obama. Reflecting on her role as project leader in the 2013 middle school Bulldog Bytes girl’s camp, she says that one of her most rewarding moments occurred while helping a participant. Rian stated, “She was eager to get my attention to show me that she had completed her project, but she was interested in taking the project further. ….. and it further solidified my reasoning to work in computer science.”
Sarah Lee joined the faculty at Mississippi State University after a 19 year IT career at FedEx. As an associate clinical professor and Assistant Department Head in the Computer Science and Engineering Department, she is co-founder of the Bulldog Bytes program that provides K-12 student outreach and teacher professional development in CS. She is PI for the NSF INCLUDES Mississippi Alliance for Women in Computing, partnering with stakeholders to engage and mentor girls and women on computing pathways. She serves on the board of directors for the Mississippi Coding Academies, an emerging workforce development program.
Ruthe Farmer of CS for ALL wrote this story. She is a national advocate for gender equity and diversity in technology, and has focused her efforts on diversity in technology and engineering since 2001. At CSforALL, she serves as Chief Evangelist, working to invite new stakeholders to the CSforALL table – and make the table bigger. Prior to joining CSforALL, Ruthe served as Senior Policy Advisor for Tech Inclusion at the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy focusing on President Obama’s call to action for Computer Science for All, led strategy and K-12 programs at the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), and implemented national tech and engineering programs at Girl Scouts of the USA. She has launched multiple national inclusion programs including Aspirations in Computing, TECHNOLOchicas, the AspireIT outreach program, Lego Robotics for Girl Scouts, Intel Design & Discovery and more. She served as 2012 Chair of CSEDWeek, was named a White House Champion of Change for Technology Inclusion in 2013, received the Anita Borg Institute Award for Social Impact in 2014, and the UK Alumni Award for Social Impact in 2015. Ruthe holds a BA from Lewis & Clark College and an MBA in Social Entrepreneurship from the University of Oxford.
