BUSINESS PROF’S COMMUNITY KEEPS HER CONNECTED TO STUDENTS

When students in Dina Abdelzaher’s class say they know she cares about them and their success, they mean it. It’s not just because of her commitment to their achievement inside the classroom. It’s because they know her supportive nature and generous spirit extends far beyond the confines of the university’s walls.

Abdelzaher, an associate professor of management in UHCL’s College of Business, is the founder and director of Youth for a Better Houston, a nonprofit organization aimed at helping teenagers become happy, productive adults through mentorship, community service projects, and leadership opportunities.

“I feel compelled to do service outside my classroom,” Abdelzaher said. “I see kids in the teenage years as being underserved. There are opportunities for college students, but there’s an unmet need for those in the 12-18-year age group.”

She said during those years, teens could be doing great things, but that’s often not the case. “This is a time when they can go the wrong way because they don’t have a way to fill their time productively and make friends,” she said. “This really can affect their mental health. Without positive influences, they can make poor choices. Making friends through service helps a lot. Every weekend there’s something to do in Youth for a Better Houston.”

Although the group is not directly tied to the Arab community, Abdelzaher, a practicing Muslim, said that many kids in the group are Muslim. “They know everyone is always welcome, and anyone can contribute,” she said. “The group is run by the youth themselves.”

Abdelzaher built the group on a rotating mentorship model, in which kids can rise to leadership by taking charge of service projects. “This is work they can put on a resume or on scholarship applications,” she said. “Every month, they play games with senior citizens, they participate in sandwich drives for the homeless in the Fifth Ward, and many other activities to serve the community. It’s important to see kids be productive, happy and accepted.”

From a management perspective, Abdelzaher said she applies the same theories that she teaches in her classes at UHCL. “These kids are rising to become the leaders and future managers in our community,” she said. “I see this as developing the same things I’m teaching my college students in kids at a younger age. This is when we teach kids to be team players and not just the boss. This is when we help kids learn public speaking and how to present themselves in a job interview.”

As a professor, Abdelzaher said she believes her service grounds her and helps her remain connected to the community. “We often end up teaching in our own silos,” she said. “Our research can be a form of a silo because we can only talk about it with other academics.”

Now with a group of over 100 kids, Abdelzaher said Youth for a Better Houston’s next project is a carnival for local refugee children. “People say they wish someone else would do these things, but it ended up needing to be me who does them,” she said. “Part of this is about my faith. As a Muslim, you’re taught to give back to your own community—that is core.”

Organizing people to serve together serves her identity as a contributor and as a professor. “You cannot be a good leader without being a good team player,” she said. “If you are not supportive and kind, how can you be a leader? Learning to talk to people who are not like you and understand you must stay focused on the goal and be able to work with people you don’t know is part of management. In time, everyone can become friends and they know they can come together.”

PROF RECEIVES BASU FELLOWSHIP TO SUPPORT UNDERREPRESENTED STEM SCHOLARS: ‘MY HEART HAS ALWAYS BEEN WITH GIRLS IN STEM’

Women make up a quarter or fewer of workers in computing and engineering, and Hispanic and Black workers continue to be underrepresented in the STEM workforce. Assistant Professor of STEM Education Carol Waters is passionate about narrowing that gap. As the recipient of the Basu Fellowship, awarded by the Equity and Ethics Committee of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, she’s committed to helping young scholars, doctoral students and junior university faculty from underrepresented communities develop as education science researchers.

“The aim is to create an emergent scholars’ program,” she explained. “The fellowship will support us as researchers, so that we can go out and support other researchers and students.”

“I represent women who come from a lowerincome background who never thought they could find a place in a STEM-related field,” Waters said. “In our family, we did not have much money. But we were raised to believe that poverty was a state of mind. We were rich with family relationships and books, and that is how I look at my students, many of whom are also struggling financially. My heart has always been with girls in STEM.”

Waters said she had been a first-generation college student who worked through college. “I became a science teacher and I saw that by the 8th grade, girls were no longer engaged in science,” she said. “The boys began to shine, but brilliant girls with great passion and potential start to pull back in science and math.”

Fast forward to today, Waters said she has a passion and love for supporting girls. “I want to be there to tell them they’re good in science and math and careers in those fields are accessible to them,” she said.

She said her work as a Basu Fellow would give her the opportunity to take a deeper dive into research. “There is a need to support women in STEM, and the purpose of the fellowship is to reach all those who are underrepresented, but for me, women in general are facing challenges in breaking into STEM fields that are currently dominated by men,” she said. “I had people pull me forward. When I taught 8th grade, I created a girls’ STEM group. This is where my passion originated.”

She sees herself in many of her own students who come from a similar background. “A professor who’s a Basu Fellow is working to understand and learn more about underrepresented groups in their own university and around the nation,” she said.

“Everyone has a story,” she continued. “Because my students have a Basu Fellow as their professor, they know I care about their story and I’ll do anything to help them be successful. Sometimes, students who are struggling just need to find a relationship with a professor who will say, ‘You can do this. I hear what you’re saying and I believe in you.’”