Just five years after graduating from Beloit, Michael “MJ” Strawbridge’19 is preparing for his first semester as a tenure-track assistant professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis. A scholar on Black identity and its intersections with politics and mass media, MJ began his academic journey in the McNair Scholars Program.
Michael “MJ” Strawbridge’19 was a football and track and field athlete at Beloit, but it took him a while to discover one of his other passions: research. In fact, he initially “ran from the calling” of academia, citing a family full of teachers and the ability to skate by on ability rather than studying.
Now, just five years out of undergrad and two months out of his Ph.D. program at Rutgers University, he’s about to start his first year as a tenure-track assistant professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis.
What changed in the years between? For one, McNair Scholars, a TRIO-funded program to help first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented minority students pursue research and prepare for graduate school. Over two summers — one on campus and another at a different institution (for MJ, at Duke University) — McNair Scholars experience high-level research opportunities and stellar advising about their post-college plans.
MJ, who ended up majoring in political science and media studies, began at Beloit interested in law, but left hoping to pursue a fully-funded Ph.D., which he didn’t know existed before his McNair experiences.
“McNair was integral to my entire pathway and gave me the space to figure out who I was and what I wanted to do,” MJ says. “I had ideas and ambitions to do big things, but no idea how I would go about executing them. McNair was a safe space where you could ask a dumb question to figure it out. [McNair staff] were telling me things I didn’t even know to ask about, and it made a huge difference.”
Cue MJ’s mentors, including Phil Chen, now a political science professor at the University of Denver, former McNair director Dr. Atiera Coleman’10, and Ron Watson, a political science and health and society professor and current assistant provost.
“[They] really poured into me [and] had a lot of patience with me. I won’t lie, I wasn’t fully into it. I didn’t always try. [Chen and Watson] had me as their TAs during the school year and pushed me to be the person I needed to be. I remember when I came back senior year and told them I wanted to get my Ph.D. I was expecting this big shock moment from them, and they were like, ‘Okay.’ They had been waiting for me to figure it out.”
A great fit
MJ spent his doctorate immersed in quantitative methodology and American politics research. He’s now a scholar of Black politics, and his research focuses on how identity plays a role in our understanding of politics and mass media. The course he’s teaching this fall is “Race and Ethnic Politics in the U.S.” With lessons in political psychology and media studies, the course will investigate the role of TV news and social media in elections and how race, ethnicity, and gender play a role in the results.
“I like teaching, but even more than that, I love research,” he says. “I get to study the science of politics. It’s not just a circus to me, it’s more of a game of chess. I like to study how one would win that game.”
His scholarship on Black Americans and their political involvement began in McNair with a project on Ferguson, Missouri, in the aftermath of Michael Brown’s fatal police shooting. The topic was very close to home for MJ, whose family largely lives in St. Louis. His research has become a published article and the source of a new book, one of four major writing projects MJ is currently juggling. (Other topics range from the relationships between Black people and spaces, racism and sexism, and Black women in the Congressional Black Caucus.)
As a large Research-1 institution, WashU will clearly be a great fit for MJ.
“I have a big research agenda,” he admits. “WashU has been great for that. I don’t think they have a limit on what they want me to do. Every time I come up with some new, ambitious idea, they’re like, ‘Great, go for it.’ I’m really grateful to be at a place where they’re letting me shoot for the stars and land where I want to. That’s the kind of environment I need to be in for what I want to do.”
New (and old) beginnings
WashU has been MJ’s dream university since he went to grad school and decided he wanted to become a professor. Aside from the stresses of starting his first semester and moving across the country in the middle of the summer, he’s thankful to be back in his hometown of St. Louis and start the next chapter of his life.
“It’s a mix of excitement and honest nerves,” MJ says. “It’s very anxious going into this big unknown. Academia isn’t scary, but being a grad student and a professor are two very different worlds. It’s a lot of adjusting to this very new world for me, figuring out how I want to approach it, but also having my own spin and style.”
One of the biggest draws is being a short distance away from parents, grandparents, cousins, and friends. Settling back in his hometown has helped him focus on the intensive planning and discomfort of teaching for the first time.
“The plan had always been to one day get a job at WashU. I didn’t know when that was going to happen — I thought I’d go off in the world, work at some schools, and eventually get a job back there. But fate working out in this way, where I get to come back home and work my first job out of grad school at a very early age in my career, is the biggest blessing ever,” he says.
MJ knows teaching race and ethnicity in politics will be especially intense this election cycle, but he’s up for the challenge. “As nervous as I am, I’m fully living the dream that I had when I first started this [journey]. It’s definitely exciting.”
August 23, 2024
