The sort of person who’s always on the move, Buffie Longmire ’02 has raced through the past decade taking on seemingly impossible amounts of responsibilities and roles.
- The McDonogh Report celebrates the contributions of African Americans to the Lafayette community.
For all her forward momentum, Longmire says she’s most happy when she’s stirring things up, “in the thick of things.” As a social researcher – she’ll obtain her Ph.D. in applied psychology this fall from New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development – working in the field with the group she studies, she knows she has an impact.
Those groups are teenagers and young adults who receive services from The Door, an adolescent health center in Soho. Serving a population of 12- to 21-year-olds, Longmire helps evaluate The Door’s programming in HIV testing, counseling, and referrals.
“I have the opportunity to take something that is very relevant and pick it apart and ask questions that people might have in their heads but maybe don’t want to say out loud,” explains Longmire, who graduated from Lafayette cum laude with a B.S. in psychology. “This is a huge goal for me – being able to take the information I have in the back of my head and make is available for the masses. What I have learned is amazing, but not everyone can grasp it. So for me, it’s about empowerment. Not only me, but the groups I work with.
“I grew up in a single-parent family that definitely struggled financially in one of Cambridge’s working, lower-middle-class neighborhoods,” she explains. “I never realized how economically disadvantaged my neighborhood was until I got to graduate school and read about my neighborhood in a book for class.”
The SteinhardtSchool honored her with the Leaska Dissertation Research Award. Experience, identity, and self-esteem in emerging adults are among the issues Longmire is examining in her doctoral dissertation, entitled “How racial-ethnic identity moderates the relationship between perceptions of family socioeconomic status and the self-esteem of emerging adults.”
Longmire’s academic progress balances her experiences in the social realm, and she believes the root of her success lies in her past.
“I grew up in a single-parent family that definitely struggled financially in one of Cambridge’s working, lower-middle-class neighborhoods,” she explains. “I never realized how economically disadvantaged my neighborhood was until I got to graduate school and read about my neighborhood in a book for class.
“But growing up in that environment, which I loved so much because all of the rich cultural experiences, and then going to Lafayette, and my prep school before Lafayette, gives me a sort of unique viewpoint. Being able to navigate these two worlds allows me to be a bridge.”
Not only did Longmire develop intellectual grounding at Lafayette, and prior to that at Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, Mass., but her experience as one of relatively few minority students at these institutions encouraged her to develop social skills she relies on today in her psychology work.
“Being a minority student meant, for me, in some sense always having your guard up, because you’re not sure how people are going to react to you. So I learned to watch and assess people’s behavior, to ask questions about a person, ‘What kind of cues is he giving off, so I know how to respond?’”
Further, Longmire directed her passion for being part of the action at activities and groups both on and off campus. She coordinated the Landis Community Outreach Center’s Kids in the Community Program, served as a resident advisor for three years, and as a senior, was historian for NIA, the multicultural women’s support group, and the Association of Black Collegians.
As a participant in the EXCEL Scholars program, she focused her intellectual curiosity on a psychological concept known as “stereotype threat.” Under the direction of Andrew Vinchur, associate professor of psychology, she authored an honors thesis examining how gender and race affected perceptions of a leader’s style and effectiveness.
“Doing the research and working with the professors allowed me to flex my intellectual muscles and gave me the confidence to say, ‘I could make a career out of this, I’m going to go for it,’” Longmire says.
She displayed her photography in an exhibit at David A. Portlock Black Cultural Center as part of an independent study with Curlee Raven Holton, professor of art and director of the Experimental Printmaking Institute.
Longmire’s academic and social pursuits were recognized and rewarded when she received the Leroy D. Nunnery ’77 Award for Intellectual Citizenship.
“It means a lot to be recognized by your community of peers and by faculty you’ve admired and with whom you’ve had so many interactions,” Longmire says. “It’s a great experience when your community validates you and says that not only are you trying to find the answers, but you’re asking the right questions.”