Alumna, Former Employee Sees Personal Meaning in Mentorship

Alumna, Former Employee Sees Personal Meaning in Mentorship

By Brian Hiro

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Shanelle Watkins often thinks about several previous iterations of herself.

She thinks about the version who had just graduated from Cal State San Marcos and still harbored some self-doubt, unsure how she would turn her sociology degree into a career.

She thinks about the version who set off for UC Davis as the first person in her family to attend college, but who couldn't find the support that she needed and ultimately failed out.

Most of all, though, she thinks about 12-year-old Shanelle, a Black girl from southeast San Diego (the "hood," as she proudly calls it) who had her whole life ahead of her but also had already experienced her share of pain. Watkins even dedicated her doctoral dissertation to that Shanelle.

"That's when things started to click for me and a lot of questioning started to happen," Watkins said. "That little girl, I just want to take and hold and heal.

"I think that she probably would think I was really cool. I think she would really like me."

Now 36, Watkins is devoting her life to ensuring that other young girls - or, more precisely in her case, young women of color - can receive the mentorship that she sometimes got but occasionally eluded her, can achieve the success that she has attained despite the obstacles that dotted her path.

Two years ago, Watkins left her job as assistant director of the Black Student Center at CSUSM - the university she had returned to almost a decade after graduating - to become director of the Chancellor's Associates Scholarship Program at UC San Diego. CASP, as it's known, awards scholarships to and nurtures during their time at the university local and high-achieving students who come from low-income families - students, in other words, like young Shanelle.

While she was working full-time at CSUSM and now UCSD, Watkins also was studying at both schools part-time, as an Ed.D. candidate in their joint doctoral program. Her dissertation, inspired by her experience running the Black Student Center for three years, explored the challenges faced by Black women student leaders at Hispanic-Serving Institutions within California State University.

"I wanted to know what leadership meant to them," she said. "How did it come about? Where was it rooted from? Through those questions, I heard very rich stories about the stress of code-switching or feeling like you need to assimilate to fit in or not being seen or being the token Black person in whatever organization or group you belong to."

She defended her dissertation and officially became Dr. Watkins, but she wasn't finished with the subject. As an outgrowth of the project, last September she started a company called Leading While Becoming. The leadership organization offers quarterly group coaching cohorts and one-on-one coaching for women of color. She has built a roster of about a dozen clients, most of whom are women in their 20s who are trying to launch their careers.

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"I didn't foresee it happening this way," Watkins said. "I thought my dissertation might be a toolkit to inform college leaders. I didn't think it would be a full-fledged coaching program. But I am glad, because it gives me the opportunity to meet with folks and empower them and watch them grow. It's doing a lot of the things that I wish I had had."

What 12-year-old Shanelle did have was a love of education and a thirst for knowledge. What she didn't have was financial resources or the most stable home life. Her mother, Augusta, was a stay-at-home parent who Watkins said did the best she could to raise her despite confronting personal challenges. Her father, Aaron, struggled with substance abuse problems before he got clean in a drug rehabilitation program and turned his life around.

Aaron Watkins became Shanelle's rock. After going sober, he got a job in facilities management at UCSD, where he worked nights cleaning science labs and offices for the next three decades. During the day, he worked (and still works) as a delivery driver for Pizza Hut. But he still found time to drive Shanelle to school every day, and to pick her up between his shifts.

"Through his dedication to remaining sober and his hard work, I think he definitely instilled a lot of that in me," Watkins said.

In contrast to his other two children (Shanelle has an older sister and younger brother), who both played sports, Aaron Watkins recalls Shanelle being laser-focused on academics and ancillary activities - from being part of a radio broadcast with a classmate to serving on a drill team to doing a ride-along with the local police department.

"She was involved in everything she could be," Aaron Watkins said. "She was almost always self-motivated."

Her passion for learning, however, didn't always come with a sense of belonging. When Watkins reached middle school, her family took advantage of a city program that allowed kids from disadvantaged neighborhoods to attend schools in wealthier communities. She went to Correia Middle and Point Loma High School, which both feature predominantly white student populations.

"I questioned if I fit in there or if my family had the money to provide me with the things that I needed to thrive," Watkins said. "For a little bit, it did kind of dim my light."

That light grew brighter in high school, when the canceling of her elective choir class because of low numbers led her to the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program, which is designed to prepare underrepresented students for college. On the first day, her teacher, Kellie Larson, told Watkins she would have to go to study hall and turn in notes every week. Watkins, feeling uncharacteristically rebellious, was less than enthused.

"I was like, I'm not doing any of that,' " she said. "That whole first semester, her and I beefed so bad."

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Larson persisted, pushing Watkins, encouraging her to take AP classes and sign up for clubs, handing her the tools to succeed that her parents didn't know existed. By the time she graduated from Point Loma, Watkins had amassed more than $35,000 in scholarships.

"Mrs. Larson and I are still in touch to this day," she said. "If it weren't for that choir class not having enough people, who knows where I would be now?"

The appearance of mentors at just the right time would become a pattern for Watkins. After her academic withdrawal from UC Davis - "I was up against a lot of first-gen struggles," she says - she returned home to attend MiraCosta College, then transferred to CSUSM. As a senior in fall 2012, she gave birth to her son, Seiji, and thought she might have to drop out, again derailing her academic ambitions.

But a group of sociology professors - Watkins called out Karen Glover, Kathy Shellhammer, Sharon Cullity, Mary Roche and Gary Rollison - rallied to her side, pointing her toward maternal services, helping her postpone certain courses, letting her bring her baby to class. One even made a quilt for Seiji.

"The faculty in the sociology department loved on me in places that I needed to be loved on," Watkins said. "It made me really grateful for my CSUSM experience."

And when she came back to CSUSM as a staff member eight years later, in 2021, she discovered another invaluable mentor in Gail Cole-Avent, the university's interim associate vice president for student health and wellness. Watkins says Cole-Avent, her supervisor, taught her how to occupy a leadership role without sacrificing her identity or sense of authenticity.

Watkins' return to CSUSM was the first in a series of gratifying full-circle moments that have marked the last few years. Her hiring at UCSD brought her to the place where her father worked for a generation before his retirement in 2019 - where she first learned what college was and how life-changing it could be. Even now, she encounters former colleagues of her dad, professors whose labs he cleaned, and they urge her to reach out if she ever needs assistance.

Also, when Watkins decided that she wanted to add a board membership to her expanding resume, she sought out a San Diego nonprofit named CRASH (Community Resources and Self-Help). CRASH happens to be the organization that helped her father kick his drug addiction and begin his life anew way back when. In December, CRASH hosted a holiday party at one of its houses, and Watkins went with her dad, who had been invited as an alumnus of the program.

"Everyone who he ran into, he was like, 'This is my daughter, she's on the board, she's a doctor,' " she said. "My dad doesn't smile a lot, but I could see the pride on his face."

And here's one more full-circle moment. Watkins is a business owner, she's a higher education administrator, she's a leader. Above all, though, she's a mother. Seiji is 13 now, almost the same age as the young Shanelle who Watkins often reflects on. He's in seventh grade, he's an ardent athlete and, like most teenagers, he thinks he's too cool for his mom.

"I was a single mom from the time he was three months old, and I would say I think I did a good job," Watkins said. "He's a wonderful kid and he's my best friend. I see a lot of me in him. I always tell him, 'You're the greatest thing I've ever done.' "

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Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist

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