Introducing our new Mentorship & External Engagement Manager!
Meet Candace and learn more about her role
Candace joined optiMize’s full-time staff as the new Mentorship & External Engagement Manager. As a prior Fellow, receiving funding for her project, Candace has been an integral part of the optiMize community. We are so excited to introduce you all to Candace Curtis-Cavazos to learn more about her journey at the University of Michigan, vision for optiMize Mentorship, and why she joined the opti-team.
Anything and everything, the whole history of Candace.
I joined the optiMize program as an applicant. I was studying for my Masters, I was pregnant I think? I had one child already and I was pregnant with my second child. I was on my way to getting my Masters in Leadership and Policy and a Micromasters in System Improvement. That is where optiMize helped propel me into the world of improvement. I was already inspired by the Micromasters I was studying at the time which was about identifying problems in systems and figuring out processes for improvement, and that was mind blowing to me. I was in optiMize learning about social innovation at the same time, so I was thinking that this all goes together: system improvement and social context. It was perfect timing! After I was done, [Bloom Bodies] got funded from optiMize and we led our mentorship program in the summer in Detroit. After that I got propelled into consulting. I was really into consulting small businesses and nonprofits and even certain projects that community leaders were leading. I was just heavily invested in being a person who helped people solve problems and identify problems in their processes so that they could build capacity and do the work they were trying to do with more social impact. I opened up my own cafe. I was consulting and trying to open my own business at the same time, and my cafe is very social impact focused so the social innovation is all in there mixed with it. Now I'm here with optiMize again while running my own cafe, which is again perfectly aligned and contributes to each other.
What drew you to social innovation?
I think just seeing problems in society, experiencing them first hand and [seeing] issues around inequities in education. My focus when I was at Michigan and all my jobs post college were involved in community organizing and education which is where I noticed inequities in education. I think social innovation is really the way of solving those things because these are problems that directly impact people in their lives and the trajectories of their lives. What drew me to social innovation was noticing that this is what we need to be doing to solve problems and improve people’s lives.
How did you first hear about optiMize?
Someone forwarded me [an email]. One of my colleagues, probably at Michigan, forwarded me that opportunity. I was currently in my Master’s program and they told me “you should really do this, you should see if the work that you are doing in the community could get funded.” We were already doing lots of work in the community as far as mentorship goes, so when we approached optiMize we were trying to get funding for the mentorship work that we were doing with students in Detroit. And, I joined optiMize, and I’m so glad I did because I learned so much.
Why mentorship or what drew you to mentorship?
The disconnect for a lot of people that come from marginalized communities especially low income communities. There are a lot of nuance, cultural norms, and language that is not spoken. These are things you learn by being part of a certain culture or experience, and a lot of people that come from low income communities or marginalized communities may not have the opportunities to get acquainted with those norms.
So, when it comes to moving into the higher education space, the world of academia or professional business, a lot of students struggle. I think there is mentorship needed in order to fill the gaps to connect people from diverse communities to this standard of knowledge and expectations that the professional world and the world of academia continues to expect, which we can talk about if those are valid. Mentorship is necessary for filling in those gaps and transferring that knowledge but also to empower. A lot of people that come from different communities struggle – we struggle– with having the empowerment and the validation within us to think that we can see ourselves in certain spaces where maybe we don’t see ourselves yet. It can be really nerve wracking and it can make you have questions about your own identity and who you are. I think mentorship helps people to feel empowered and validated so they don't feel like they have to change themselves when they walk through different spaces. They can just grow into who they are, into their professionalism, without losing parts of themselves.
What is it that inspires you?
People. Just people. I love people so much. I’m a poet, I’ve been a poet my whole life and what always was my inspiration was people. The way they achieve, people’s resiliencies, even people’s doubts, worries, fears, and struggles. I am just fascinated and inspired always by people and the complexities of our emotions, our thoughts, and our multifacetedness. I am a firm believer that people are multifaceted. We are complex beings, and a lot of that gets lost in the professional world. We are expected to be one thing and we are only seen as one thing, but that’s really damaging. I am really inspired by people who can be multifaceted wherever they are. So everyday I strive to be my multifaceted self everywhere I go. Learning how to do that well and with grace is hard, and I think I am inspired by people who achieve that or do that in all the little ways. It’s not just the people who are “successful in business” or anything like that, but just everyday people like when I am riding the bus, when I’m at the grocery store, when I’m just walking down the street. I am inspired by people’s resiliency and joy even through the struggle.
So now you’ve entered this new role and what are you most excited about?
Learning. Honestly, I am really excited about learning from everybody and continuing to grow as a professional and as a leader. I really want to be the best leader that I can and the best mentor that I can. I’m just excited about the opportunities to continue to grow and evolve as a mentor and a leader. And I'm excited to contribute! I know I have lots of knowledge, skills, and experience at this point to offer younger people and students, so I'm excited to just be there as a support person, be leaned on, and be used for whatever I can offer to people. When I was in the field before optiMize, I was blessed to have some amazing women of color as supervisors who blessed me with some really important knowledge. However, the higher ups I typically worked for outside of that were very hoarding of knowledge and didn’t want to share the insights they had, and that was very hard. I don’t want to be that. My goal in optiMize is to really be an open book and be explicit and direct with students to give them what they need to know and whatever they’re looking for. I don’t want to hoard any of the things that I've learned. Hopefully, if I can make it easier for someone else, that would be good.
In your perspective, what is the importance of mentorship as it relates to project work in an academic setting?
Mentorship is empowerment and validation. When you are in an academic setting, it’s super intimidating, especially if you don’t have parents who went to college to prepare you for something like that. I was a first generation college student, so I know the feeling and the pressure and the fear that comes with wondering who am I supposed to be in this space? Am I allowed to be myself? Am I going to be treated differently if I talk this way or act this way? What am I supposed to be saying and doing in this particular setting or in this particular email? All of those things are pressure. Students already have what it takes, because they’re already here! You applied, you got into Michigan, that means you already have what it takes. Mentorship is just saying remember that– you are everything you need, so don't doubt yourself. I think that what I struggled with when I was in higher education was doubting myself all the time. I just needed that constant “it looks good, your work is fine, your email is fine, you did fine, you got it, you’re not different from these other people in that sense.” [Mentorship] is critical in an academic space so that we can bring where we’re from to the table and not try to pretend to be something that we’re not because we are afraid that what we are is unacceptable when that’s not the case. There are people that will make you feel that way, and I think the mentorship piece is key and critical in those moments where you feel weak or you feel judged. The mentor can step in and say “no, that’s just the way that person feels, but that’s not an accurate reflection of you.” So I think mentorship is critical in the academic world.
If you’d like to chat with her, feel free to sign up for her office hours or stop by the optiMize office!