Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow / Livestream
After serving as an executive at several Fortune 500 companies, running her own business and even teaching dance, Stacè Middlebrooks nearly quit her pursuit of earning a doctoral degree from Grand Canyon University.
“What I recognized very early in the doctoral journey was that, ‘Oh, I'm in this for the wrong reasons,’" Middlebrooks said. “I was in it for ego, like I want the Ph.D. behind my name. This is what you do. You graduate and keep going, and that's it.
“So I had to really rediscover my why, and what I learned through my doctoral journey was that my why had nothing to do with the letters behind my name. Why had to do with my commitment to making the world better than how I had found it by the time I leave, and it also had to do with my purpose in really highlighting and amplifying voices that are generally unheard and ignored. That became my why.”
With the assistance of Dr. Michelle Sandoval, her third chair, and reassembling data, Middlebrooks found her path to earning her doctorate in general psychology. Her defense of her dissertation, titled “A Story of Non-Executive Black Women in STEM Overcoming Intersectional Invisibility,” was so impressive that she was nominated and selected to deliver the commencement speech at Wednesday afternoon’s ceremony at Global Credit Union Arena.
It is one of six ceremonies over three days celebrating the graduation of GCU online and cohort students.
“The stars aligned for us to be able to work together,” Sandoval said. “She turned out to be one of the best students I’ve ever had. She made a complete 180 and pulled it off with an amazing dissertation.
“She just leaned into it. She’s one of those who wasn’t just writing a dissertation to get it done. She actually truly cares about her topic and the population her topic is on.”
Middlebrooks embarked on her doctorate in 2018 – 22 years after earning her master’s degree in sociology from Georgia State University. Since November 2020, she has owned and operated Purpose Powered Coaching + Consulting, a company in which she coaches women. She specializes in coaching Black women in leadership and possesses experience as a diversity and inclusion consultant. Before starting her business, Middlebrooks worked at several large companies, including Coca-Cola, UPS, Cisco Systems, Sprint and Southern California Edison.
She became motivated to pursue a doctorate after what she witnessed as a diversity and inclusion officer. She would hear from women of different backgrounds who were overlooked and wondering why they kept returning despite feeling, every day, they would be bypassed for promotions even though they were the most qualified. Oftentimes she heard women telling her how they would see others receive credit for their work.
“It's my lived experience and what I witnessed in my corporate career,” Middlebrooks said.
But she encountered a few speed bumps on her path to earning her doctorate. COVID prevented her from flying from New York to Phoenix for her second residency. She also wondered if she started the pursuit of her doctorate too late at 48. And she interviewed with other universities to see if they would accept her work toward a doctorate.
Middlebrooks, however, regained her spark after witnessing tension throughout the country and felt the need to bring the light. Her faith became reinforced by prayer, and when Middlebrooks left the corporate world to become a life coach, she realized she needed a similar community to help smooth her path to a doctorate.
“And the community and the connection were pieces of my resilience,” Middlebrooks said. “You have to be connected. You have to be in community. We all rise together. You're not going to do this by yourself.
“I would say the connection found me because I certainly wasn't looking. I was ready to quit.”
Middlebrooks felt extremely comfortable after Sandoval shared her journey in earning her doctorate and assembling a staff that would help her move forward.
“Getting assigned to her (in December of 2023) was the biggest blessing of my doctoral journey,” Middlebrooks said with a big smile on a Zoom call.
Middlebrooks’ resilience and passion helped push her through some long study sessions.
“Does it take me more to recover from an all-nighter at 55?” Middlebrooks said. “Yes, 100%, but it's so worth it.”
In fact, near the start of Middlebrooks' commencement speech, she asked her fellow graduates that if they heard something that resonated to respond with an "Oh, yeah."
"It was plenty of coffee, long nights and a never-ending relationship with Microsoft Word," Middlebrooks told fellow graduates, family members and supporters at Global Credit Union Arena.
"Oh, yeah."
Defending the dissertation fueled a spectrum of emotions for Middlebrooks, who recalled nearly quitting but invited those in her sister communities to watch so they can see her watch her defend their story.
“To stand in that greatness and to just receive, it was completely rewriting a lot of limiting belief stories that I carried, and that for me was just the biggest triumph.”
Middlebrooks, who hadn't been enrolled at a university since 1996, said she chose to enroll at GCU because its Christian base aligned with her values. And her husband, Brian’s, service in the U.S. Marine Corps meant financial aid.
“Plus, I’m not going to lie,” Middlebrooks said. “I love the color purple.”
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]
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