Catherine Ma
City University of New York
New York City, New York, United States
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Dr. Catherine Ma is an accomplished and influential figure in psychology and academia. Her role as the first Chinese full professor of psychology at Kingsborough Community College is a testament to her accomplishments, and she acknowledges the invaluable support of her loving husband, three children, parents, mother-in-law, and pug in her success. Dr. Ma is a highly accomplished and dedicated professor whose work encompasses a wide range of essential topics such as antiracism pedagogy, Chinese immigrant experiences, and the impact of race and class in various settings. Her commitment to education and community involvement shines through in her significant contributions to teaching, scholarship, and service, particularly in areas related to antiracism pedagogy, Chinese immigrant experiences, and the impact of Chinese mothers. Dr. Ma's dedication to supporting students is exemplified in her decade-long mentorship of students of color, her ongoing mentoring of junior faculty at Kingsborough’s HURFS-RC (Historically Underrepresented Faculty and Staff Resource Center), and the creation of the Yuet Chun & Tai Yee Ma Memorial Endowment Fund which offers an annual scholarship to a hardworking Kingsborough student in perpetuity.
Her newest venture addresses the lack of mentorship among AAPI faculty and staff. Dr. Ma cofounded AAMPOWER (Asian American Mentorship Providing Opportunities to Women for Empowerment and Resilience) CUNY with her distinguished colleagues Dr. Trang Le-Chan, Dr. Payal Doctor, and Dean Sandie Han. This role in this organization highlights her commitment to fostering mentorship, empowerment, and resilience among Asian women in higher education. By creating a supportive community for sharing experiences and addressing critical issues, AAMPOWER CUNY represents a significant endeavor in championing diversity, inclusion, and support for future generations of Asian women at CUNY. Dr. Ma's collaborative efforts in establishing this initiative reflect her dedication to advocacy and empowerment within the academic community.
Dr. Ma's impressive achievements are reflected in her receipt of several prestigious awards, including Kingsborough's Fostering Teaching Excellence and Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Works Awards, and her dedication to teaching and mentoring excellence in the academic community was recognized with the SPSSI Two-Year College Teaching and Mentoring Excellence Award in 2022. Dr. Ma's numerous awards and accolades speak to the quality and impact of her work. Her passion for empowering others and addressing systemic injustices makes her a valuable asset in academia and beyond.
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Not Waiting for a Seat at the Table and Creating Our Own Table
Not Waiting for a Seat at the Table and Creating Our Own Table: Envisioning and Creating an Asian Female-Centered Community of Practice [Full title]
There was a time when mentoring in academia, whether as a higher education officer or as a faculty, meant assimilating to a white-dominated style of mentorship that often did not take into account Asian cultural values. In addition, many Asian leadership styles are frequently viewed as lacking and unsuitable for the Western workplace. A missing component that can help provide structural support to Asian feminist women is mentorship that is specific to the needs of Asian women. Through Dr. Trang Le-Chan’s research on Community of Practices, we applied her expertise to address this need by creating an Asian woman-centered mentorship organization called AAMPOWER (Asian American Mentorship Providing Opportunities to Women for Empowerment and Resilience). A Community of Practice (CoP) can naturally evolve because of the members' common interests in a particular domain or area, or it can be created deliberately to gain knowledge related to a specific field. Through sharing information and experiences with the group, members learn from each other and have an opportunity to develop personally and professionally. In addition, a CoP centers on a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.
Mentorship for Asian women is duly lacking and may be the reason why so few Asian women get promoted in academia. During these precarious times of growing white supremacy and anti-Asian sentiment, Asian women need mentorship to provide a safe and inclusive space for discussing and sharing issues concerning the Asian and Asian American experience in higher education. This panel aims to discuss the role of mentorship, share supportive measures that have worked for us, and find ways for other groups to sustain their own mentorship circles with funding. We want to center this panel on sharing how we created AAMPOWER and identifying what we have learned from the workshops we have given based on the needs of this specific group of Asian women. We will discuss how to be a good mentor, how to ask for one, ways to lead with resilience, navigating microaggressions, and practicing different ways to set boundaries. We hope that sharing what we have learned can inspire other Asian groups to create mentorship circles that can address the specific needs of Asian women.
AAAS Annual Conference 2024 Sessionize Event
AAAS Annual Conference 2023 Sessionize Event
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