Description

Today we have an incredibly empowering woman and author named Verlisa Rennae joining us to talk about thriving through adversity. Lisa wrote her book ‘A Black Girl Once Told Me To Never Give Up’ for students who face adversity while trying to build their careers and ultimately dream lives. Her book is about the challenges she has faced on a personal, academic, and emotional level while attending a predominantly white university.

By sharing her story, Lisa hopes to encourage other young black women and women of marginalized heritage to find the strength, the purpose, and the voice within them to accomplish their goals. Her hope is to encourage dialogue about the challenges African American students face with adjusting to college life at PWI’s so that programs can be put in place to help black students to not only adjust successfully but successfully graduate as well.

Lisa is an advocate for addressing the challenges in store for African American students entering predominantly white institutions (PWI’s), meaning colleges that are founded on white principles and created for white people (this is most of the midwest collages.)

Many marginalized students often do not come from empowered households and getting a degree is also brushed off as an easy thing to accomplish. When in reality students every single day deal with anxiety, depression, and even homelessness in the name of graduating. If you are a student in college right now, or a friend/parent of someone attending college right now this episode is for you. Students deal with so much more than classes and homework to achieve their degrees. They need your support now more than ever.

Key points to tune in for:

Lisa’s experience living in Chicago. [3:15]

What are PWI’s [11:05]

Challenges Lisa has faced as an African American from Chicago to PWI’s [12:01]

How Lisa healed from losing her parents. [20:20]