0:00:01 – Announcer

You are listening to the National University Podcast.

0:00:10 – Kimberly King

Hello, I’m Kimberly King. Welcome to the National University Podcast, where we offer a holistic approach to student support, well-being and success- the Whole Human Education. We put passion into practice by offering accessible, achievable higher education to lifelong learners. On today’s episode, we’re talking about women in higher education, leadership and the achievement gap, and according to a recent study in Frontiers, the study of female leadership and the factors contributing to women’s empowerment in higher education has actually increased, as well as the volume of publications on female academic careers. Nevertheless, in terms of systematic and scoping reviews, there are few studies, an issue that is echoed in other fields of studies related to higher education. Stay with us for more on today’s podcast.

On today’s episode, we’re talking about women in higher education, leadership and the achievement gap, and joining us is Dr. Irma Diaz-Martin. She’s retired in 2021 as a corporal law enforcement officer for the state of California After 21 years, and as a corporal and leader of her organization. She not only provided training through the field training program for newly hired officers, but also served as a board of director for nonprofit organizations for 14 years, serving in the capacity of vice president, treasurer and secretary and board of director for Epiphany Prep Charter Schools for four years in San Diego. She attained the Master Instructor Certification course certification as instructional designer for the state of California and has used her skills to help others by designing a hate crimes course for the state. She also designed and taught a bias stereotypes course for the National Emergency Number Association, where she taught 911 telecommunicators nationwide for four years.

During her tenure in law enforcement, she expanded her professional leadership as a part-time professor for National University and she has been serving in this capacity for over eight years. Dr. Diaz-Martin’s passion has always been helping others, and she seeks to not only share her expertise and experience, but also help others deepen their knowledge through education so that they can attain a lifetime profession that they’re passionate about and that’s life-changing, not only for themselves but for others around them, and we welcome her to the podcast. Dr. Diaz-Martin, how are you?

0:02:50 – Irma Diaz-Martin

Hello, thank you, Kim. Thanks for what a great introduction. It’s an honor to be here and I am looking forward to having this conversation.

0:02:59 – Kimberly King

Oh, excellent. What an impressive background. Why don’t you fill our audience a little bit on your mission and your work before we get to today’s show topic?

0:03:08 – Irma Diaz-Martin

Sure. So right now, currently, I’m part-time, part-time professor for National University and I have been doing this for approximately nine years. It happens to be my passion- teaching others, interacting with other persons, helping them and mentoring them. It’s just a passion that I have. It’s a passion that I found late in life, by the way, after my retirement, and I eased myself into education and I just have found my place. This is definitely where I should be and where I belong, and interacting with my students, it’s really very fulfilling.

0:03:50 – Kimberly King

I love that. I love that you started it later in life too, so you give all of us hope. Right, there is life after retirement and it sounds like, yeah, you’re not sitting still very long. So today we’re talking about women in higher education, leadership and that achievement gap. And so tell me, how did your childhood experiences have an influence on your success today?

0:04:11 – Irma Diaz-Martin

Childhood experiences… for myself, I grew up in a home raised by my great-grandmother. My first language is Spanish and going into the public school system in Texas it was very eye-opening, as I had to learn English very quickly. I didn’t have much time, and going through that process and learning what it feels like to be an outsider, I think really helped me in developing myself as I became an adult and understanding others, understanding the backgrounds that we all have, different backgrounds, different challenges that we bring, and here in our educational field, really there seems to be a mold. Everybody needs to fit a certain mold. However, everybody brings so much richness, so much experience of their own, and in providing this education to them, I find myself not only helping them, but also they help me. And, like I said, just that first experience of walking into a classroom not being able to communicate was such an eye-opener and it was such a pivotal moment in my life.

0:05:25 – Kimberly King

I love that you shared that, and you know we don’t really think about other people, and so that’s quite a memory that you didn’t even speak the language and then you came in, and so that’s- thank you for sharing that. Who has been your most influential mentor as you pursued your educational professional goals?

0:05:46 – Irma Diaz-Martin

Well, interesting enough, my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Gietzen, talking about the power of education and having a mentor, having somebody who believes in you and really pushes you forward, really pushes the limits for you to do your very best.

Mrs. Gietzen fourth, fifth and sixth grade she’s my hero. Unfortunately she passed a few years ago but up till the end still kept in touch with her and she taught me the power of education, of being educated and having knowledge, and that was my very first mentor. And my next mentor came later in life, as I entered law enforcement and I found myself in a male-dominated world. So quickly you gravitate, try to find somebody who looks like you as a woman. Right, trying to find somebody who can mentor you in that position and somebody who can mentor you in that position. And unfortunately in my organization it was- we didn’t have many women or many choices of women in leadership.

But I did find my commander. So, Commander Peters, he again- the belief in that you can do better and the person who pushes you to do better. That was my mentor for my career, for the second part of that career. Many careers in between-

0:07:13 – Kimberly King

Yeah, and I love that, especially with your fourth grade teacher. Now it’s like you’re paying it forward now because of your love for how she mentored you, and now look what you’re doing for your students. That’s like a full circle moment here. So I love that.

0:07:28 – Irma Diaz-Martin

Absolutely yes.

0:07:29 – Kimberly King

Do you have a personal philosophy that helps guide you through life?

0:07:34 – Irma Diaz-Martin

Well, yes, there’s one that I have, edited knowledge right. Always know that you don’t know everything. And of course that comes from Confucius, which is telling us that you know, knowledge is recognizing what you know, but also what you don’t know. So for me that’s very important because it gives me the humility to always have an open mind and always listening to others, to learn from others as much as I’m able to share with them. But that’s one. The second one, which is I’m just a life learner. I love to read and I love diving into research and data, and just finding answers would be being a life learner. Gandhi right? Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. You know, die tomorrow- I’m not very, not very, not a fan of that term there, but just think about it. If we, every day, if we treat it as if it’s our last day and we try to learn every day, how much growth we can achieve. So those are the two philosophies that I really gravitate towards.

0:08:52 – Kimberly King

Nice. Why are you passionate about helping others succeed through mentorship?

0:09:00 – Irma Diaz-Martin

Mentorship is extremely important. So, as I explained for myself, let’s look first at my upbringing. I am the first, the first to graduate with a degree, the first to have a master’s degree and now the first to have a doctoral degree. So, being the first, the pressure of always being the first, is a very- it has its challenges and, for me, my way to give back is to help others, whether they’re in that same position that I was, where I had all of this weight on my shoulders of having to achieve and demonstrate that, yes, I can do this. And I want others to know that, yes, you can do this, especially when I work with women, as women- studies show that, gender-wise, we tend to gravitate back to traditional roles. It doesn’t matter how educated you are, it doesn’t matter which field you choose to work in, but once you walk into that door, all of a sudden in your home, all of the roles reverse, and it tends to be- and I’m not saying all, but majority of us will tend to be the caretakers, the ones who prepare the meals, make sure children are ready for the next day, and yet still work a full job and have travel time.

And if you decide to go back and further your education, the educational challenges. So for me, I always find giving back is letting those persons know, yes, you can do this and, at the same time, helping to remove barriers. So what barrier do you have that I have under my control, that I can help you with, and sometimes it’s even, in my experience, it could be a simple tutoring session. You know, let me help you on the side and give you some subject matter information to help you. So in my, at this point in my life, it’s really- my goal is to give back, to have others understand that they can achieve and remove any barriers and, if I can be of service.

0:11:16 – Kimberly King

I love that- Service before self. That sounds like one of your mottos there. So why do you believe mentoring others is important? I know you’ve just kind of really talked about the importance of it, but I guess there’s so many things we can take away and learn from mentoring.

0:11:34 – Irma Diaz-Martin

Well, mentoring selfish, being selfish. It’s a two-way road right. It’s a two-way path. It’s an alliance between myself and another person and not only am I helping them, but I grow so much, emotionally, intellectually, when I interact with other persons. I learn more about myself. How can I be a better mentor? How can I better listen? How can I help others without pushing too much? Right? You want to know exactly how much you should push that person to move forward and when it’s time to stand back and let the person grow on their own. Extremely important, that’s one of the reasons. Another reason we do a great job at enrolling students. But persistence, right. Enrollment- very easy to get students in, enroll them. Have advisors fill the paperwork and all of a sudden they’re in their first class. I also teach undergraduate courses in Homeland Security, emergency management, and criminal justice and when I see students returning at an older age- which is not old- 30 years or older is considered an older student, I notice the challenges of coming back. It may be technology, or it may be the fact that just 10 years ago I took a class and this is the first time I’m here again, and I feel intimidated. So helping them succeed, I think, is extremely important because if you can change the life of one person, if you can help one person succeed, it’s planting a seed. If you really think about it, that person, how many other people are depending on them or looking up to them? And then they can be a role model for somebody else and then hence, at a later time, also mentor others. So mentoring the person, not only to believe in themselves, provide guidance. I need to serve as a role model, so that always helps me grow also, ensuring that I’m a good role model, right, that I’m providing the best in helping the student learn about values, attitudes, even soft skills, you know we don’t really discuss soft skills. But those soft skills are the ones that help you succeed. Right? Succeed in a profession, not just academically. So preparing students after academia, what’s next?

0:14:24 – Kimberly King

I think that’s great advice, and I think, you know, something we don’t really think about all the time is, yeah you may be mentoring for others, but it’s also how they view your mentoring abilities. So it does- it’s kind of like a domino effect. It really, if you’re helping them succeed, you’re helping everybody succeed. So, yeah, the best advice you can provide for others for success? I know you kind of just answered that too, but is there like a specific mantra that you have?

0:14:40 – Irma Diaz-Martin

Well, having a goal, always have a goal. And in what has really worked for me throughout my entire life and it’s not just in academics or professionally, but even in my personal life what I have found is, if you have a five year goal, solidify that five year goal. Where do you see yourself in five years? And then, as these five years approach, in between have other intermittent goals more attainable, some that are faster to attain.

Working towards that one goal that you’re looking at, whether it’s graduating with your degree, whether it’s an undergrad or graduate, or if you’re in a graduate program and now you want to go to a doctoral program, having that goal and also have that vision, what is after academics? What are you going to do with this degree? How are you going to help others? I always tell my students, think ahead, look at the big picture. So, looking at the big picture, having the five-year goals, has really, really helped me and that’s what I always teach. So I’m hoping that it does work, that students will come back five years later.

0:15:57 – Kimberly King

Oh, I like that. Yeah, always have a goal, and I like that. Even the follow-through, the checkup there too, that’s neat. What is the best advice you can give someone to help plan a career and not just keep a job?

0:16:11 – Irma Diaz-Martin

Find your passion. Once you have a passion, you know you’re in the right place. For me, prior to being an educator, it was law enforcement, so always having that service, you want to help others, you want to make sure others are safe, and then, when I went through my career as an officer, it really it just flew. It went so fast because it was something that I really enjoyed and I really felt very passionate about what I was doing. Now that I’m in education, I’m starting to find the same thing.

Nine years are starting to go really fast. Yeah, I’m starting to see time fly, and again it’s because I’m doing what I love. I love to interact with other persons, I love to help and I love to learn. So I always grow with my students and I love to learn, so I always grow with my students.

0:17:02 – Kimberly King

I love that. I love that, and you know what I just I also love again, it’s not, it’s your second career and so I mean it does go hand in hand again, helping people and making sure that, you know, you have that mentoring ability no matter what you do. But I love that you just shifted and you give hope to a lot of people. You’re such an inspiration. So thank you for talking about your path. Why should we care about mentoring and how does it make a difference?

0:17:31 – Irma Diaz-Martin

When we talk about mentorship in education, I think I explained a little bit earlier about- it’s very easy to have students enroll, but the persistence to continue forth and follow through- mentoring, I think is the key. We have students that are entering at an older age, 25 and older, and again, that’s a new trend we saw this year in 2024. And the other side of that is we also know that they’re not exceeding 50% graduation rate or they have not in the past. So again, for me, the way I see mentorship is helping the persons remove barriers.

So, whatever it may be, if it’s not understanding the system. If it’s, I have an emergency and my child’s sick. I need some time. It’s finding solutions, solutions to keep the person moving forward, to succeed right and have others later find success through them. When we talk about minorities, women and minorities, like I said, we’re doing great in enrollment. However, when you look at the statistics, when we look at the graduation rates, we drop. Women drop, and especially from underrepresented groups. So one of the things about mentorship is, as a woman and I know statistics also state women prefer to have a mentor of their gender. So women always would like another woman to be their mentor. And then, if we talk about race and ethnicity, the preference of having somebody from the same background, who can share the same experiences and who may have a better understanding culturally. So, again, ensuring that our retention and our graduation rates increase, not only enrollment, so mentorship is the key to that.

0:19:37 – Kimberly King

You know, and you brought up a really good point about you know, the students that start later on or who are balancing their careers and families, and you know, and just, I guess we all have life moments and you know, no matter if it’s caregiving for parents or whatever it is, but it seems like you’re stepping in to kind of bridge them to through those difficult times as a mentor in this, and that’s so important. Not, you know? Sometimes people can just get so frustrated or um, and want to give up, and so you’re there to kind of cheer them on and say, yeah, we can do it, of course, and there’s always something that could happen, but it’s nice to have a cheerleader in their corner. So that’s, I can see the results, you know, and the feel, the success you feel from that. What are some barriers you have found through your academic and professional pathways?

0:20:31 – Irma Diaz-Martin

Professional pathways… Definitely finding mentors. I, the struggle to find a mentor for myself. I’ve always been a mentor, but finding a mentor for myself has been a challenge. It’s always been a challenge, um, mainly because the majority of my professional life has been in a male dominated field.

0:20:53 – Kimberly King

Yeah.

0:20:54 – Irma Diaz-Martin

So that could be the reasoning. So finding my own mentor and finding others that are willing to basically help you. Right, it’s always takes somebody to open a door. So that’s been my biggest challenge and that, I think, gives me insight to our students when they come to me and they tell me, you know what, Dr. D I have been, I can’t do this. I didn’t pass the other class or my paper was not passing, and I absolutely have the understanding of okay, the person needs a little bit more, more of the role of let’s look at this, let’s find solutions and let me help you find a solution to just bridge that barrier, because I know that everybody has the ability to attain a degree. I have students who have come to me and said I cannot do this in my K through 12, they said that I had a learning disability. And I said you know what? The only difference here is that you learn differently. And it’s myself as a professor is learning how others learn.

0:22:08 – Kimberly King

Yeah, yeah, and you know what. That’s good too, just because you know what’s worked for you or where you’re searching for that mentorship. But you know now you can, and so when a student comes to you and especially and you said it kind of earlier you know, even in your male dominated profession in law enforcement, it’s almost yeah, you’re looking for somebody that you can relate to, somebody that looks like you, somebody that is like you, and so you see that probably with your own students. So I think that’s having that awareness is, you know, that’s a key of important part. The mentoring is so important these days when 20-somethings are trying to decide their path. I’m sure your kids, they know the outside influences, but most of our kids need that after college. Is that something that you’re dealing with?

0:22:59 – Irma Diaz-Martin

Generational mentoring. So, interesting enough, my doctoral degree was a generational study, and generational really means that you just take the- you look at the whole person, you always look at the whole person. Generations do make a difference and in mentoring, a mentor should simply look at the person and find out what the challenge is. Each generation brings its own challenge. For example, if we look at Generation X example, if we look at Generation X, Generation X- very independent and love to work independently.

So somebody who would be a Generation X would most likely work and continue moving forward and not really ask for help. So I need to make sure to be tuned to that know where the person is at all times when they need that help. If we have millennials, millennials love to work together. They’re excellent, excellent groups. You put a group together to work. They work together very well and also very good with technology. So again, that may be because technology is there. It may be a hindrance, for example, grammar, spelling, because you’re so dependent on technology. So being aware of that and knowing that, again that could be a challenge and just awareness. So each generation brings its challenges. I still don’t have much exposure to Generation Z, so we will see what the future brings.

0:24:34 – Kimberly King

Oh, that’s good, and my last question is what is the best piece of advice you would provide students to succeed, both for their academic and professional goals?

0:24:44 – Irma Diaz-Martin

Goes right back to, I think, the philosophy in life where just know that you do not know everything, have the humility to be able to ask for help but also to take advice. One of the lessons I walked away from with the master instructor course for the State of California was learn how to take criticism.

And I know, as a professor I’m not giving criticism, but it was a program where we stood up, had a maybe 15, 20 minutes to present on a topic we were not aware of, we do not know about or not are not experts on, and then we stand in front of an entire group and you do your best and then the criticism comes in. So just imagine a room full of police. The criticism really comes in.

0:25:40 – Kimberly King

I’m sure.

0:25:42 – Irma Diaz-Martin

What we learned was you just say thank you, thank you very much, and you take the paper, you read it and then you improve. So always knowing that there’s room for improvement, we all have room for improvement, and I even tell that to my students. I said, look, I’m not telling you, I know everything, but I will find out. So. If there’s something that we need to know, we will know at the end. So having the humility.

0:26:06 – Kimberly King

Oh, I love that, and you know what that sometimes lacks probably in every generation, right. But yeah, their humility should be on everybody’s headline up here. Well, what a delightful interview with you today. We appreciate you joining us and if you want more information, you can visit National University’s website, nu.edu. And again, thank you for your time and your wisdom.

0:26:30 – Irma Diaz-Martin

Thank you so much. Thank you.

0:26:31 – Kimberly King

Thank you so much. Thank you, you’ve been listening to the National University Podcast. For updates on future or past guests, visit us at nu.edu. You can also follow us on social media. Thanks for listening.