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- I am Safiya Noble and I am a faculty member
at the University of Southern California Annenberg School
of Communication.
I will say, I've been toe-to-toe with people from every kind
of Ivy League university, all throughout my career
both when I was in corporate America and in the University.
And the things that people at Fresno State taught me,
all of my professors equipped me to go toe-to-toe.
In fact, I was shocked that there were things I knew
that they didn't know.
So, you know people should not sleep on Fresno State,
it was an amazing place
and I got a tremendous education out of it.
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I wanted to go to Howard in Washington DC or Spelman.
My mom was ill when I was in high school
and my brother and sister were much older
and they were off doing their thing
and so it was really kind of, on me, to stick around
and make sure that our mom was good and you know,
with hindsight, I was just so, so glad that I did that
and I definitely felt like going to Fresno State,
I just decided well, I'm just gonna blow it out and do
and try to experience as much as I can,
since I'm staying home.
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When you work in student groups and student activities
and work around issues that are happening in your community,
you realize that there are things that you share in common
that actually deepen your humanity; that are not really
about politics but start to become about what does it mean
to live in the world that is diverse
and makes space for everyone.
You know, when I was a student body president,
it was like the fraternities and sororities were a voting block
in student government and I, I mean if I open my mouth
they would shut it down, every single time,
I mean, you know I was not the type of person,
nor were other activists at Fresno State,
the type of people who would get awards, like this.
Let's just say, I mean this is shocking,
it's not the one person, it was like hundreds of people,
every day, doing things to talk about a better world
that we could or should live in
and that's always met with resistance,
today just like it was before.
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All while I was doing that kind of corporate work,
I was always spinning on how was I gonna get off of this
and go back to graduate school.
And I have to say that it was meeting my husband.
We worked at the same ad agency in Oakland
and I went and made a mistake of telling him that,
you know, my real dream was to get a PhD and be a professor.
And he went and like took it seriously
and super supported me to eventually do that.
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I feel everyday, that I am living my dream.
And it's really not so much about being a professor
as much as it is, the interplay of having a family
that I love very, very much. I wanted a lifestyle
where I could be a writer or I could just take my laptop
and go somewhere and write and where I could try
to share a couple things that I think are important
to know from research with my students.
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If I can make research, if I can write and I can do studies
that can be discovered a hundred years from now
and provide some insight, then you know,
that seems like a way to be more thoughtful about
the bigger picture. You know, being an educator
is the greatest privilege,
I've ever experienced professionally.
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