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National TRIO Achievers (2007)
During my junior year, majoring in chemistry at UMass-Boston, my professors began to notice something unusual about me. In the lab, the work I was doing was excellent. But in the classroom, I was struggling. Sometimes my written answers to exam questions lacked key words, or the sentence structure was backwards. After being tested, I was diagnosed with a severe form of dyslexia.
“I understood that…my destiny was to finish the race that I had begun and to blaze a trail for others—no matter the obstacles in my way.”
At that point I was already involved in a phenomenal new science initiative called the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program. No worries about tuition or books, and I had a chance to do the thing I loved…science.
Immediately after learning of my disability, I considered quitting the McNair program and dropping out of school. But I remembered a story about how Dr. Ronald E. McNair lost his research notebook along the banks of the Charles River in Boston. Instead of giving up, he went back to the lab and painstakingly replicated all of his graduate work. Dr. McNair did not let that mishap stop him from fulfilling his destiny to earn a Ph.D. from MIT or his dream of becoming an astronaut.
I thought about how Dr. McNair persevered, and I recognized that by quitting, I would be wasting a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I realized that a learning disability was something that I could overcome with hard work and support from the McNair TRIO program. I understood that, like Dr. McNair, my destiny was to finish the race that I had begun and to blaze a trail for others—no matter the obstacles in my way.
I did not let my learning disability disrupt my dream of completing college and earning my Ph.D. in chemistry from Brandeis University. And to this very day…I think of Dr. Ronald E. McNair and the McNair program and remind myself to reach for the stars.
I grew up in a small town in West Virginia. Neither of my parents had been to college and my grandparents were not even high school graduates. Despite this, my family encouraged my educational endeavors as best they could. When I discovered that I was pregnant during my junior year of high school, suddenly I seemed destined to follow the same path. My daughter was born the first day of my senior year in high school and, with lots of family support, I managed to finish and graduate.
“I was destined to become a statistic. But thanks to Student Support Services, I overcame my obstacles and I am a productive professional helping others.”
I had always planned to attend college immediately after high school, so off I went to the West Virginia Institute of Technology with absolutely no idea of what to do and no one to help me do it. My family knew nothing about college course selection, scheduling, or graduate school preparation. It seemed I would have to figure it all out on my own, and that was a scary proposition—and I had a child to think about!
It was certainly difficult for me to admit that I needed help, but I did. Soon, I had a tutor, and Student Support Services became a second home to me. It was there that I found advice about scheduling and my choice of major, people to listen to me vent my frustrations, and generally help me along. They celebrated my every success and shared my every disappointment. As graduation drew closer, they helped me prepare to take the LSATs and look at different law schools. When my marriage fell apart, my SSS counselor gave me the strength to keep going.
I know, without a doubt, that I am where I am today because of the TRIO program. They gave me academic support when I needed it, but they gave me so much more! I am a firm believer in this program. I was destined to become a statistic. But thanks to Student Support Services, I overcame my obstacles and I am a productive professional helping others.
The second oldest of five, I grew up in a single-parent household in Pittsburgh. My mother instilled in us the importance of education. She made sure we took advantage of all the educational opportunities available, including Sunday school, scouting, sports, the arts and even acting school. In high school, I was a 6’8” basketball player who played first violin in the school symphony. I grew up poor but determined to succeed by obtaining a good education. In fact, I never knew what I didn’t have until I went to college and someone told me. At home in Pittsburgh, I was busy being happy and loved; too busy trying to do something to better myself to notice what I didn’t have.
Thanks to my upbringing, I was receptive to the most important and influential opportunity in my youth—Upward Bound. At the end of my freshman year in high school, I was introduced to the program at the University of Pittsburgh.
“My Upward Bound experience and the academic life that has followed it have allowed me to broaden my definition of family to one that includes large communities of young people and students of all ages.”
In my years at Upward Bound, I developed greater self-confidence and a sense of individuality. The program taught me the importance of taking advantage of all opportunities and how to do so. Upward Bound introduced me to a group of people who had a wider vision for my future than I was able to perceive; they helped me to see a world of possibilities.
In my role as Chancellor of UMass - Boston, I have the great honor of serving a large population of students with backgrounds similar to mine, and I have the responsibility of assisting them in achieving their fullest potential. I also have a wonderful wife and three great children—the center of my universe. While loving my family is another one of those lessons taught by my mother, providing my children with the skills to succeed academically and in life is a connection today to what I learned in Upward Bound those many years ago.
My mother taught me how to love and value family. My Upward Bound experience and the academic life that has followed it have allowed me to broaden my definition of family to one that includes large communities of young people and students of all ages. Upward Bound’s indirect benefits may just constitute its greatest legacy: now, my life’s work in education and in the community involves passing on the life-altering—and life enhancing—lessons I learned at Upward Bound.
Having been raised with my younger sister by a single mother, education was not the foremost thing on my family’s agenda while we were trying to make ends meet. But as a child I was captivated by the space program. The bold American flag on those big white space suits that the astronauts wore was always on the front of my mind, and I knew I had to go to college, and all the way to a Ph.D.
While I was an undergraduate at Colorado State University, I applied for the Space Life Sciences Training Program (SLSTP) undergraduate internship at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. When they rejected me I was heartbroken and wondered what was wrong with me. I remember walking on campus and coming upon a flyer for another summer internship with the Colorado State University McNair Scholars Program. Being a space enthusiast, I knew who Ron McNair was and I went inside to learn more. I applied for the McNair position and was accepted.
McNair was a place where I felt I belonged, surrounded by faculty who cared about our education as well as personal experiences. That summer offered me a chance to do independent research, learn about the true preparation that it took to enter graduate school, and hear from Ph.D. students about what belonging to a doctoral program is all about. I knew I wanted to obtain my Ph.D.; however, I realized I hadn’t appreciated the mechanics of getting there. I simply didn’t know what I didn’t know.
As the saying goes, when one door closes on opportunity, another one opens. Going inside could change the course of your life. That’s exactly what happened with my internship rejection. I needed to take that time to grow in the McNair Scholars program, which became part of my life. I was accepted into the Space Life Sciences internship the following summer. Upon graduation I decided to first obtain my MS degree at CSU in mechanical engineering. I’d realized that the future was interdisciplinary in nature, especially within the space program.
“McNair was a place where I felt I belonged, surrounded by faculty who cared about our education as well as personal experiences.”
After completing my MS degree, I was accepted to several Ph.D. programs, and had an offer from the NASA Johnson Space Center to work for the Engineering Directorate. I couldn’t pass up either, so I took the position at NASA and began a neurosciences Ph.D. program a year later. I know that all my hard work has gotten me to a place that many others can only dream about. I realize that I still have many challenges ahead of me to reach my ultimate goals, but for now, I can go to bed at night with the feeling that I must already be dreaming.
I am a 31-year old lead engineer for all of the medical equipment that is on the International Space Station, having also just completed my Ph.D. in neuroscience. In the years to come, I hope to become an outstanding interdisciplinary researcher with joint appointments at NASA and a university, and eventually to become an astronaut.
At this point in my career, I recognize the responsibility I have to other students in sharing my story and encouraging them to follow their dreams. It’s not impossible. It just takes a great work ethic and occasional (though yes, often painful) rejection to allow opportunity. I’ll always belong to the McNair Scholars Program, and I’m honored to be nominated for the TRIO Achiever award.
I was born in Haiti, the child of poor and illiterate parents. I came to the United States when I was 15 years old, reunited with my mother who had emigrated to Chicago six years earlier. I was able to attend one of the best private boarding schools in Haiti because my mother sent money every month for tuition and living expenses.
Once in Chicago, I realized that my education was secured at the price of extreme sacrifice by my mother. I would not truly understand until later how much influence my mother’s perseverance would have on me. It was the combination of this drive for me to succeed and the resources available through the Student Support Services program that would enable me to thrive at the University of Illinois.
Entering the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with just two years of English in high school, meant that I had deficiencies likely to cripple my academic career forever. I was, however, able to overcome these deficiencies and succeed…due mainly to the academic support and general counseling I obtained from the SSS program in the Office of Minority Student Affairs. Otis Williams and the staff were advisors as well as friends and surrogate parents. I counted on them and their support and understanding with every aspect of my student life experience.
“My goal in life is to make a difference in the lives of others less fortunate, much as the staff of the SSS program made a difference in my life. I am living proof that the key to success is education.”
My interest in economics grew out of my concern about poverty in the world, and also by the need to understand the paradoxical and persistent racial economic disparity that I was witnessing in the U.S. I ultimately pursued a Ph.D. in Public Policy Analysis/Economics because I believed that I could make a difference.
As an economist working at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, one of the greatest financial institutions of the world, I am involved in preparing ongoing analyses that support the Federal Open Market Committee process. This allows me to help shape and affect timely national monetary policy. I have also conducted research on access to the financial markets by vulnerable populations; the wage/occupational mobility of ethnic minorities and Blacks; and on the wage and employment impact of immigrants on “natives” in the U.S. I am proud to do applied research that gives a better understanding of real-world issues affecting people’s lives. I also want to give back to my community. I try to have an impact through mentoring young minority adults, and through the promotion of access to education by poor children.
My goal in life is to make a difference in the lives of others less fortunate, much as the staff of the SSS program made a difference in my life. I am living proof that the key to success is education. There is a lot more work to be done, but I believe that I am heading in the right direction, thanks to my mother’s hard work, the opportunities I gained at the University of Illinois, and the caring persons in TRIO.
I was a fairly bright kid, but only rarely applied myself. My high school counselor must have seen a hint of potential in me and pulled me out of class one day to attend a presentation for a program called Upward Bound.
I sat through the presentation more interested in the Chicana girl next to me than the tremendous opportunities that Upward Bound had to offer. At the end, the presenter stopped me and said, “Hey homie, what college are you gonna go to?” He caught me off guard. No one had ever asked me that before. I said the first thing that came to my mind: “I’m gonna go to Colorado College, homie”—recalling that earlier that week my English teacher commented that Colorado College was the best college in Colorado. “That’s right homie,” the man said as he handed me an application, “you’re gonna go to Colorado Collage and I can help you get there.”
I filled out the application more out of curiosity than a real desire to go to college and somehow was accepted into the program. I had some rough times through high school. My dad was sent to prison. Three of my homeboys were murdered. And my mom drank herself to death. I had a tremendous amount of anger that made me a difficult person to deal with back then. But the Upward Bound staff was always there, believing in me and never letting me forget that Colorado College was my goal.
“It was the support system Upward Bound provided that really made a difference for me… Upward Bound helped to open up another world to me—a world beyond my barrio.”
Even though I hated it at the time, every summer I took academic readiness courses with UB. They incorporated all the programmatic elements that research says an effective college access program should have. But it was the support system Upward Bound provided that really made a difference for me. It was the conversations about social justice, theater, art, and the philosophy of Star Trek that helped to spark my interest in learning. Upward Bound helped to open up another world to me—a world beyond my barrio.
According to Tom Mortensen’s “A Chance for College” equation, a low-income Latino male has about a 3% chance of earning a bachelor degree by age 25 in Colorado. But I beat the odds. I was accepted at Colorado College, and after four years, I walked across the stage to receive a bachelor’s degree.
In my current position, as a Senior Education Policy Specialist for the National Conference of State Legislatures, I travel around the country talking with legislators about the achievement gap between low-income and upper-income students, between students of color and white students. About all the sad inequities that still exist in education.
Although the anger of my youth has tempered a bit, I still understand the great need to address these inequities and work to destroy them. We need to do for every student exactly what Upward Bound did for me. Have high expectations, supply rigorous academic readiness, and provide a stable support system. I sort of stumbled upon Upward Bound by luck. We cannot afford to leave the education of our young people to luck.
Twenty years ago, prepared by my family and Upward Bound, I arrived in Atlanta—a freshman on the campus of Morehouse College. After years of seminary study, graduate education, and pastoral work in the Northeast, I feel very blessed and privileged to serve now as the pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, spiritual home of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
When I consider that I grew up in the housing projects of Savannah, GA; that my parents did not attend college; and that I was the first of my 12 siblings to attend college, it is very clear to me that TRIO’s Upward Bound program is a major part of what made the difference in my life and future.
I always dreamed of attending college. But Upward Bound helped me to know that a college education was within my reach. In fact, built within the culture of the Upward Bound experience was the expectation that I would succeed. Part of this occurs through the “de-mystification” of the college experience afforded when you take young people growing up in poor neighborhoods like mine and allow them to spend their Saturdays on a college campus and their summers living in a college dorm, sitting in college classrooms. These experiences had far-reaching impact, enabling me to imagine stupendous possibilities for myself and a wide world beyond the one in which I lived.
“I always dreamed of attending college, but Upward Bound helped me to know that a college education was within my reach. In fact, built within the culture of the Upward Bound experience was the expectation that I would succeed.”
Upward Bound teachers and counselors provided me with an education in their classrooms and exposed me to culture in the vast classroom called “the real world.” My parents could not afford to take us on summer vacations. I am always grateful when I remember that the very first time I traveled to New York City, I visited as an Upward Bound student. Never having journeyed north of Atlanta, it felt, to me, like a world larger than life itself.
I also remember my first visit to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change. As I stood there one hot summer day, as an Upward Bounder, staring at Dr. King’s robe and considering the awesome mantle of moral leadership and service, I did not know that I would become the fifth senior pastor of America’s freedom church, seeking in word and deed, to provide hope for some young kid like me who is growing up in a housing project, negotiating the challenges of poverty and urban life, yet seeking to be upward bound. As long as there is breath in my body, I will continue to fight for that kid and whenever TRIO calls, I will remember and respond.
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© 2008 Council for Opportunity in Education | 1025 Vermont Avenue N.W., Suite 900, Washington D.C. 20005 | Tel: (202) 347-7430, Fax: (202) 347-0786
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