Darden College’s Inaugural Holmes Scholar Cohort Prepares for Their Journeys to Ph.D.s

According to an American Psychological Association report in 2021, Black men – men like Clarence K. Bumpas – make up about 4% of the doctoral-level psychology workforce. As a Holmes Scholar, Bumpas wants to increase representation in the mental health field, enriching the services provided to underserved and underrepresented groups.

The former football player made his way from athletics to clinical mental health as part of his own experience “navigating my own struggles between the balance of the two,” Bumpas said. He was working toward playing professional football while going to school. During that time, his son died, and Bumpas, looking back, said he struggled to cope.

He completed his master’s in clinical mental health counseling from Colorado Christian University and is a licensed counselor in Colorado.

Now he wants to see mental health be considered as part of overall wellbeing – especially in underserved populations.

The Holmes Scholar program appealed to Bumpas because of the professional networking and mission to include diverse scholars in higher education. To him, it is an opportunity to not just make professional connections, but to contribute to the mental health field more broadly.

“In order to diversify and decolonize some of the mental health field, it’s going to take these kinds of pockets,” Bumpas said, describing the Holmes Scholar cohort. “You can’t do it alone, right?”

Because throughout his own mental health journey, Bumpas said there were “innumerable” times he saw the lack of diversity in his field and the need to improve representation.

As a professor, he hopes to “contribute not only to the field of research but to the cultivation” of mental healthcare providers from diverse backgrounds and identities.

Hilda Adu Gyamfi’s 17-year career in teaching did not start in special education, but now she is a Darden College Holmes Scholar with the goal of building on the scholarly work being done in the field and, hopefully, share that experience and knowledge with scholars in the United States and her home country of Ghana.

The first decade of Adu Gyamfi’s teaching career was in Ghana, where she taught elementary education.

She said special education in Ghana was limited to the blind and deaf and students with multiple disabilities who are required to be in self-contained classrooms. The range of specific learning challenges many people struggle with is not widely understood. Adu Gyamfi said “it is beautiful” to learn about the system of support for students with special needs.

Not long after moving to Hampton Roads, Adu Gyamfi started teaching pre-school at Old Dominion University’s Children’s Learning Research Center. There, a little girl with special needs sparked her desire to learn more about special education.

“I handled her as a mother would, but at the same time, I thought I needed a more professional touch, so it was not like she was at home,” Adu Gyamfi said.

Adu Gyamfi decided to take in a couple of classes before ultimately enrolling in a special education master’s program at the University.

She specialized in providing math support for high school students struggling with dyscalculia and worked in Norfolk Public Schools. Her goal has been to help students persevere and graduate high school.

Now as a Holmes Scholar, Adu Gyamfi will continue her studies in the field of special education with the goal of learning from fellow scholars, build up her research and writing skills and, eventually, become a professor. It is also an opportunity for her to share her experience with other scholars to help expand their knowledge of other cultures and ways to teach within them.

Natisha Harper saw the community and comradery the Holmes Scholar Program strives to provide and knew she wanted to be a part of it.

The self-proclaimed daughter of Hampton Roads worked abroad as an English teacher in Korea and the United Arab Emirates for several years before returning home. She was able to gain hands-on experience teaching before diving into the research field.

As a first-generation student – both of her parents have their associate degrees, but Harper went further, earning her master’s in library and information sciences – she felt nervous coming back to school to pursue her doctorate in educational psychology. The Holmes Scholar Program helped to ease those nerves.

“It looks like a good place to have emotional support while going through this Ph.D. and also some academic support – and to be of service after this experience.” Harper said.

Her goals do not stop at successfully completing the doctoral program. Harper hopes to continue to work with the program to help others who might come from backgrounds like her own, building up a network of researchers and instructors who will support one another.

Additionally, Harper plans to engage students in new, innovative ways that center around pedagogy, the science of teaching. She would like to contribute to the academic field by changing the approach to library curriculums. Librarians, she said, could go to classrooms and help involve students in research and active learning so that they become better researchers.

The information is there, if one knows where to look for it, she said. As a former research librarian, Harper has experience seeking out information needed to expand people’s understanding of a wide range of subjects.

That is a big part of what academic librarians do, she said, and it is something she wants to build on as a professor, by going into the classrooms and teaching students how to conduct research and grow as academics.

Deondre Johnson started off his educational journey with the goal of working in the medical field. He completed his master’s in public health at Old Dominion University and had plans of pursuing a career in community health. He liked the community engagement aspect of it.

He was also a student-athlete. Johnson played football at Mercer University as an undergraduate student and knew what it was like trying to balance academics, athletics and overall wellbeing. After graduating from ODU, he went to work as coordinator of fitness, wellness and health promotion at the University of North Georgia.

His “lightbulb moment” came when he sat down with a University athletic administrator and learned how he can combine his background in public health with his desire to “educate, inspire and continue to push people toward their academic and career goals.” Johnson decided it was time to take the next step so that will open the door to all kinds of new opportunities – even if they are ones he has not considered yet.

“(The Holmes Scholar Program) looks different for everybody, but I feel like this is the support group that I needed to not only give me the confidence but also the help to push me outside of my limits,” Johnson said.

Johnson is pursuing his Ph.D. in higher education, combining his passion for public health and student-athlete wellbeing through teaching and research. He is interested in exploring the connection of holistic development and the impact it has on student-athlete success.

At 24 years old, Johnson said he is also excited to join a cohort of fellow scholars who are coming from different educational and professional experiences. He sees himself working long-term in higher education and is confident that the Darden College Holmes Scholar experience will guide him in the right direction.

Christine Marie Turner grew up understanding the value of education. Her parents immigrated to the United States from the Philippines, and her father was a low-income, first-generation college student. Through her parents’ “sacrifices and hardships,” Turner said she saw “the power of education to change the world and help overcome poverty.”

After earning her Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology with a minor in Asian Pacific American studies from University of Virginia, Turner was a college adviser with Virginia College Advising Corps. This is an AmeriCorps program which places recent college graduates in high schools around Virginia to help improve college access for low-income, first-generation and underrepresented students.

Turner was placed in George Washington High School in Danville. Many of the students she worked with needed mental health support, she said, but she did not have the training at the time. Seeing the gaps in mental health care and resources for students from underserved groups drew Turner to counseling. She returned to the University of Virginia for her master’s in counselor education, specializing in school counseling.

She worked in schools for several years as a counselor, having found her passion. Yet she found that many people still misunderstood a counselor’s role in school, and she experienced microaggressions as the only Asian American school counselor in her districts, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

As she joins Darden College Holmes Scholar Program in pursuit of her Ph.D. in counselor education and supervision, specializing in school counseling, Turner hopes she can raise awareness about what counselors do and promote diversity in the field to better support students and future counseling professionals.

“What especially drew me to the Holmes Scholar program was the sense of community and mentorship and learning about the networking opportunities and having people of color who are in the field as well,” Turner said. “Having that representation and seeing myself in these people who have gone before me – that helps me feel like I can do it too and inspire others in the future.”