By Rachel Williams, NACAC Communications

New Orleans, LA (July 31, 2024) – “Hope is real. Hope is the only thing that got us to where we are today and it’s the only thing that’ll get us to where we need to go.”

That was the theme of Calvin Mackie’s keynote speech at Guiding the Way to Inclusion on July 31. Mackie is from New Orleans and the founder of STEM NOLA, a non-profit organization created to inspire and engage communities in learning opportunities about STEM. He also is an award-winning mentor, inventor, author, former engineering professor, and more.

“We live in a nation right now that has a million kids playing football on Saturdays hoping they’ll be one of the 250 that get drafted. No one questions that. I want to live in a world where every Saturday, there are millions of kids, especially Black and brown kids, doing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” he said.

That’s why STEM NOLA is building a new science education facility in New Orleans East, he said. Since 2013, STEM NOLA has engaged over 125,000 students in hands-on, project-based learning.

Mackie also shared his personal story to higher education. He credits a college counselor for seeing his potential, as he graduated from high school with low test scores that initially required him to take remedial classes at Morehouse College.

“[That counselor said] we’ll make you into a doctor. We’ll make you into an engineer. We’ll take a diamond in the rough,” Mackie said.

He would go on to graduate Magna Cum Laude from Morehouse College with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1990, a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech, and later his master’s degree and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech in 1996 — a time when just over 1,000 Black American citizens were earning doctorates annually, according to The New York Times.

Mackie likened the current state of higher education to a hospital with doctors who don’t want sick patients, recruiting well-off and well-prepared students, and then bragging about how well they’ve done.

“If you’re a doctor, show me who you’ve saved. Kids on the east side of Chicago, the east side of New York, the east side of Los Angeles — they need opportunity, too. That’s what this thing is about.”

He advised college counselors in the crowd to counsel students to apply to schools that want them and that will help get them from where they are to where they want to be.

“Just because it’s a No. 1 school doesn’t mean it’s No. 1 for you,” he said.

“We’ve got to keep doing the work we’re doing and give it your all for our children.”