Tiffany Shumate, EWMBA 23 – Education as the Battleground for Equity

H@H: Ep 62 – Tiffany Shumate joins host, Adam Ward on this week’s episode of Here@Haas. Tiffany shares why education is the battleground for equity, and more about her role as Executive Director at Hack the Hood, an organization which connects low-income young people of color and local, small businesses through technology in order to create opportunities for all the people who live in the Bay area and beyond.

The importance of education for Tiffany: 

“Education for me is the battleground of equity. And so when I think about my identity as an educator and how I started my career, it really started off thinking about how we make equitable learning spaces so that marginalized communities can really have access to different opportunities.”

Defining moments in Tiffany’s career:

“I was able to meet with five young men who were in a juvenile justice center in DC... I remember one of them said to me, my teachers could have helped me. And that phrase will always stick with me. They were between the ages of 15 and 17 years old. And they were also foster youth. I thought about this intersection of juvenile justice and child welfare reform, how can schools come into support because schools are community centers. And from there I really started to research and got into education policy.”

Speaking about Hack the Hood’s mission:

“So often I meet young people who hear the word tech and think of Mark Zuckerberg and not themselves. And so that's the mission of Hack the Hood. Bringing students and community members together and offering them technology fundamentals that are really going to support them today, but really ensure that they're prepared for the future of work.”

The role of Admission Officers on her journey to Haas: 

“Two years ago I actually had coffee with one of the admission officers and it meant so much to me because I wanted to talk about how nervous I was, and he sat with me for an hour. That was supposed to be a 20 minute coffee and he sat with me for an hour.”

Resources

• Hack the Hood
• On Air: On creating safe spaces for diverse teams
• San Francisco Business Times’ 40 Under 40