Dr. Buffy Smith is an Associate Professor at the University of St. Thomas Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. Dr. Smith’s lecture will discuss how the mentor-mentee relationship operates upon unwritten, informal rules that are determined by the European-American middle class values inherent in higher education systems. These rules pose obstacles to underrepresented students, because they are not only unwritten or “hidden” but also predicated upon a larger cultural framework disparate to those of the underrepresented students themselves. Dr. Smith focuses heavily on intersecting identities in this research, allowing for underrepresentation to signify the broad spectrum of racial, ethnic, class-based, and other minoritized identies.
