A Seat at the Table

Why I'm writing here, and what I hope you'll take with you

In June 2022, I stood in a packed room at USDA headquarters and was sworn in as the Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics. My family was there. My mother was there. Colleagues filled the room and joined online from across the country and around the world.

The full Senate vote had come only days earlier: 95 to 4. What most people in that room did not know is that the vote had been delayed for nearly seven months after my confirmation hearing in the Senate Agriculture Committee room on Capitol Hill. Seven months of waiting. Seven months of preparing for a job I had not yet been allowed to start.

When I finally raised my right hand, I thought about the longer road. The little girl from Augusta, Georgia. The 1985 Buick Regal that broke down on the way to NC State, and the mother, now sitting a few feet from me, who had refused to let a stalled engine end the trip. The years of preparation. The rooms I had walked into where no one looked like me. The moments I had been the first, and the only.

The gap between what people see and what it actually took. That is what I want to write about here.

What this newsletter is

I spent more than two decades in federal science leadership. I led the Agricultural Research Service, a 6,000-person agency, from 2014 to 2022. I served as USDA’s Chief Scientist. I represented the United States at the G20. I sat at tables where decisions about food, science, and the future of this country got made.

I am also a Black woman who was often the first, and sometimes the only, in those rooms.

Both of those sentences are true at the same time. This newsletter is what happens when I write from that intersection.

You’ll find two kinds of pieces here.

The first is a recurring series I call PACK. It’s a leadership framework I introduced in the fall of 2022, just months after I was sworn in, when I returned to my alma mater, NC State, to deliver the commencement address. I was still in the seat, still mid-storm, when I tried to put into four words what had actually carried me there. P for Preparation. A for Agility. C for Cup, meaning stay open to learning. K for Kindness. Four ideas, simple enough to carry into any room. I’ll be expanding each of them here, with stories from inside the federal science enterprise that I have not told publicly before. PACK is also the spine of a leadership book I’m currently writing.

The second is what I’m calling Dispatches from the Table. Shorter pieces, written closer to the news, on food security, science policy, the federal workforce, and what leadership looks like when the pressure is real and the stakes are national. These are the conversations I used to have in conference rooms. I’m bringing them out into the open.

Why now

Public discourse has rarely felt heavier. Institutions are being tested. Trust is thin. The people I worry about most, the early-career scientists, the first-generation leaders, the women and people of color stepping into rooms that were not built for them, are being asked to lead through conditions no one prepared them for.

I do not have all the answers. But I have been in those rooms. I know what it costs to walk in, and I know what it takes to stay. I want to share what I learned, plainly and without performance, in the hope that some of it travels with you when you need it.

What you can expect

I’ll publish about twice a month. The PACK essays will be longer, the Dispatches shorter. You can subscribe for free, and everything I write here will stay free for now.

If you’ve followed my work on Medium, you’ll recognize some of the voice and a few of the stories. What you’ll find here is sharper, more candid, and more grounded in the rooms where I actually did the work.

If you’re new, welcome. Start wherever you like. The first PACK essay, on preparation, drops next week.

My mother was the one who refused to let a broken-down Buick end the trip. That stubbornness, that quiet refusal to turn back, has shaped every room I’ve walked into since.

This newsletter is what happens when I keep going.

I hope, in some small way, it helps you keep going too.

That’s what this newsletter is. A way of moving forward, together, while we wait for the ball.

Dr. Chavonda Jacobs-Young served as USDA Chief Scientist and Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics, confirmed by the Senate 95 to 4. She led USDA’s Agricultural Research Service from 2014 to 2022.

She writes about leadership, visibility, and the cost of being first, drawing on stories from inside the federal science enterprise that have rarely been told. Her first leadership book, built around the PACK framework, is forthcoming.

Subscribe to receive new essays twice a month. Free, no spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Book Dr. Chavonda Jacobs-Young for Speaking, Events and Appearances | APB Speakers