Homeless Teen Graduates Valedictorian & Will Enter Spelman As A Junior

Homeless teen Chelsea Pearce is the type of girl who’s tragic, yet triumphant life is the thing tear-jerking movies are made of. Spending most of her teen years living in her mother’s car, Chelsea has managed to do the damn near impossible–graduate from high school…at the top of her class.

That’s not all! The impressive Charles Drew High School senior will be going to college at Spelman College, where she will bypass freshman and sophomore year to start as a junior!

Fearce spent her last two high school years taking college courses and her 1900 SAT score made her an academic star at her school.

How does one do this, especially under the circumstances of poverty Fearce faced? With a 4.466 GPA in her grasp, Fearce simply states, “I just did what I had to do.”

Fearce is a part of a family of five and there were many times where they would have a place to live, but those times were few and far between. Fearce’s mother, Reenita Shepherd says they “ended up back in another shelter because I got laid off from my job maybe about four or five times.”

Reenita may be facing poverty head on, but her children are over-achievers! Pearce’s sister is graduating from George Washington Carver High School as salutatorian. Shepherd attributes their academic achievements to the amount of reading she would do for them growing up.

As if this story couldn’t get any more heart-warming, Fearce offers some motivational words to those who come from her similar situation, “Don’t give up. Do what you have to do right now so that you can have the future that you want.”

Source: http://www.africanglobe.net/headlines/homeless-teen-graduates-valedictorian-enter-spelman-junior/

Twins to Graduate With Identical Honors – Valedictorian

Identical twins Kirstie and Kristie Bronner share practically everything: hobbies, favorite colors, favorite foods, and clothes.  But now they can share the title of valedictorian.

Kirstie and Kristie, both 22, from Atlanta, Ga., will graduate May 19 as the first co-valedictorians who are also identical twins at Spelman College, in Atlanta.

“I don’t think we even thought about the possibility of it,” Kristie told ABCNews.com.

“We actually have prayed about it,” Kirstie said.  “Lord help us to make 4.0s all the way through college.”

The two have the same major—music—and both have perfect 4.0 GPAs.  The sisters managed to keep up their grades while juggling Spelman College’s glee club and volunteering at their father’s church, Word of Faith Family Worship Cathedral.

“I am extremely proud of them.  They have gotten that particular status the old fashion way,” their father, Bishop Dale Bronner, told ABCNews.com. “Their greatest asset is their discipline. They got their brilliance from the mother, but they got their discipline from their father.”
“We prayed harder than everybody else and worked harder,” Kirstie said.

For the twins, their achievement meant having to sacrifice going out on the weekends occasionally. “Our friends kind of just stopped asking,” Kristie said.

The sisters attribute most of their achievements to their relationship and their similarities. “Our values are the same,” Kristie said. “Our drive is the same. We spend a lot of time together so we always studied together.”

In fact, their personalities are so similar that the two said that they’ve had many occurrences where they’ve written papers or taken tests and had the same thesis points or wrong answers.

Identical twins Kirstie and Kristie Bronner are graduating as co-valedictorians with identical 4.0 GPAs from Spelman College in Atlanta, GA. (Courtesy Kirstie Bronner)

Kirstie and Kristie have one distinction that helps tell them apart. Kirstie said, “I’m a little more direct. She’s a little more sugarcoating.”

While Kristie admits that sharing so much may get on their nerves at times, it’s their teamwork that makes their dynamic successful.  ”In college, we discovered how different we are,” Kristie said.  ” Our differences actually compliment each other.  It helps us to get things done faster.”

Kirstie added, ” I think of of the biggest things that comes between twins is competition.  Although we have our arguments, I think that one way that we help to eliminate competition is to be mindful of it and be secure in our individual identities.”

One way the twins eliminate getting compared is by dressing alike. “You can’t say one twin is the more stylish twin if we have on the same thing,” Kirstie said.

After graduating, Kirstie and Kristie plan on continuing on the same path as youth counselors, youth event coordinators, and directors of music at the Word of Faith Family Worship Cathedral.  Achieving the title of valedictorian wasn’t enough for the girls.  They also plan on writing a book with scheduling tips and releasing a gospel album.

“We don’t think we achieved it based upon genius, but based upon strategy,” Kirstie said.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/05/twins-to-graduate-with-identical-honors-valedictorian/

Oprah Winfrey to Deliver Commencement Address to Spelman College's Class of 2012

On Sunday, May 20, at 3 p.m., global media leader and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey will inspire approximately 550 Spelman graduates when she delivers the commencement address to the class of 2012. Winfrey, who received an honorary degree from Spelman College in 1993 will also receive the institution’s National Community Service Award. Honorary degrees will also be given to Dazon Dixon Diallo, C’86, founder and president of SisterLove Inc., and actress, playwright and professor Anna Deavere Smith.

More: http://www.spelman.edu/_ezpost/data/pr_commencement_oprahwinfrey.shtml

Source: http://hbcuconnect.com/

Spelman College

The Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary was established on April 11, 1881 in the basement of Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, by two teachers from the Oread Institute of Worcester, Massachusetts: Harriet E. Giles and Sophia B. Packard. The school was originally named Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary and was sponsored by the American Baptist Women's Home Mission Society.

Giles and Packard began the school with 11 African-American women and $100 given to them by a church congregation in Medford, Massachusetts. In 1882 the two women returned to Massachusetts to bid for more money and were introduced to wealthy Northern Baptist, businessman John D. Rockefeller at a church conference in Ohio.

In 1883, the school relocated to a nine acre (36,000 m²) site in Atlanta relatively close to the church they began in, which originally had only five buildings left from a Union Civil War encampment, to support classroom and residence hall needs. The school was able to survive on generous donations by the black community in Atlanta, the efforts of volunteer teachers, and gifts of supplies.

In April 1884, Rockefeller visited the school and was so impressed that he settled the debt on the property. The name of the school was changed to the Spelman Seminary in honor of Laura Spelman, an Oread student and the wife of John D. Rockefeller who helped to fund the school, and her parents who were longtime activists in the anti-slavery movement. Rockefeller's gift precipitated interest from other benefactors

Rockefeller also donated the funds for what is currently the oldest building on campus, Rockefeller Hall; in 1887 Packard Hall was also established. Packard was appointed as Spelman's first president in 1888, after the charter for the seminary was granted. The first college degrees were awarded in 1901.
Packard died in 1891, and Giles assumed the presidency until her death in 1909. Lucy Hale Tapley then became president, and the college witnessed a transition to vocational training. Tapley declared: "Any course of study which fails to cultivate a taste and fitness for practical and efficient work in some part of the field of the world's needs is unpopular at Spelman and finds no place in our curriculum." The nursing curriculum was strengthened; a teachers' dormitory and a home economics building were constructed, and Tapley Hall, the science building, was completed in 1925. A club for students whose mothers and aunts had attended Spelman was also created, and this club is still in existence today.

In 1924, Spelman Seminary became Spelman College. Spelman also solidified its affiliation with Morehouse College and Atlanta University by chartering the Atlanta University Center in 1929. Atlanta University was to provide graduate education for students, whereas Morehouse and Spelman were responsible for the undergraduate education. In 1932, Spelman was granted accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. This milestone as accompanied by the construction of a university library that was shared amongst the Atlanta University Center institutions, and the center continues to share a library to this day.

In 1927, one of the most important buildings on campus, Sisters Chapel, was dedicated. The chapel was named for its primary benefactors, sisters Laura Spelman Rockefeller and Lucy Maria Spelman. The college also began to see an improvement in extracurricular investment in the arts, with the inauguration of the much-loved Atlanta tradition of the annual Spelman-Morehouse Christmas Carol Concert and smaller events such as the spring orchestra and chorus concert, the Atlanta University Summer Theater, and the University Players, a drama organization for AUC students. In 1930 the Spelman Nursery School as created as a training center for mothers and a practice arena for students who planned careers in education and child development. Spelman celebrated its 50th anniversary in April 1931.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelman_College

Spelman College Students Win National Mobile App Competition

In his first news conference after his midterm losses, President Obama reminded his audience that the important battle for the U.S. is remaining on top of global competition. If he's looking for a model, he need look no further than Spelman College in Atlanta -- the private, independent, historically black school for women -- and its strong science, technology, engineering and math program (STEM).

In October, undergraduates Jonecia Keels and Jazmine Miller won the 2010 AT&T Big Mobile on Campus Challenge for creating a next-generation e-learning mobile application. Previous winners of the competition were from Harvard and Stanford universities. The women split a $10,000 scholarship and had their choice of a mobile device.

The duo's mobile-only creation is the HBCU Buddy. The app, free on iTunes, educates users about historically black colleges and universities. It has customizable social networking features and information about every HBCU. Michele Brittingham of AT&T Services says the HBCU Buddy "is a very well-put-together and well-thought-out mobile application."

Keels is in her first of two years studying computer engineering at Columbia University. She is part of Spelman's dual-degree engineering program. She spent three years in Atlanta and will receive a Spelman bachelor of science degree. In 2012 she will also earn a bachelor of engineering degree from Columbia. Engineering schools at 12 universities, including Georgia Tech, North Carolina A&T and the University of Michigan, participate in the program. Miller, a computer science major, will graduate from Spelman in 2011.

Miller says that Spelman's computer and information sciences (CIS) department trained students so well that failure was never an option. And that sentiment isn't just words; CIS students succeed at numerous endeavors.

Both women were co-captains of Spelman's robotics team, the SpelBots, who are sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The SpelBots participated in its fourth International RoboCup tournament and tied for first place in the 2009 RoboCup Japan Open tournament. Founded and coached by CIS Chair Andrew B. Williams, the SpelBots were also the first all-women and African-American undergraduate team to compete. The SpelBots wrote the operating code for the robots to play autonomously, generally a graduate-level task. "It gave us the programming mentality to compete in the applications competition," says Keels.

That same year, Keels and Miller were accepted into a weeklong session at Apple Inc.'s Cocoa Camp, where Apple engineers focused on building iPhone apps. Keels says, "We learned the basics about programming and then went off and taught ourselves the rest." The knowledge proved to be invaluable in the AT&T competition. Keels says, "We are programming geeks and knew that we had an opportunity to win, and a chance to compete and find out how we could do."

To prepare for the competition, for three weeks they worked up a game plan, then spent the next six weeks programming for about eight hours a day. They conferred on Skype and used "a Web repository that allowed us to both touch and change the program in real time."

The challenge began in March 2010 and culminated in September, when AT&T chose three finalists, evaluating the apps for usability, quality, innovation, utility and marketability. "We made a presentation and were informed that we were the grand-prize winners," says Keels.

Since 2006, Spelman has received more than $31 million in grant funding for STEM programs and research. The school ranks second nationally in sending black graduates on to science and math Ph.D. programs, and from 1997 to 2006, it produced 150 students who earned Ph.D.s in science and engineering, according to a National Science Foundation survey.

Founded in Atlanta in 1881, Spelman has more than 2,200 students from 15 foreign countries and 41 states. Beyond its liberal arts tradition, the school offers bachelor of science degrees in majors that also include biochemistry, environmental science and physics.

Frank McCoy is a regular contributor to The Root. He covers business and technology.

Source: http://www.theroot.com/views/spelman-college-students-win-national-mobile-app-competition

Spelman's Winning Robotics Team De-Programs Bias

he SpelBots aren't a band, they're a robotics team from Spelman College in Atlanta. They are breaking down stereotypes about computer programmers, engineers and African American women wherever they go.

ATLANTA (WOMENSENEWS)--College junior Jazmine Miller showed off a soccer-playing robot to prospective members of the Spelman Robotics, or SpelBots, team.

"His name is Charles, he's very difficult. That's why it's a he," she laughed. "We kind of see him as human; we talk to him, we yell at him."

As Charles got its bearings, it spoke to the crowd in the computer lab. "I don't see the ball yet I'm sorry. [Pause] Oh, I see the ball." The crowd cheered as the 4-foot-tall robot kicked the ball.

Creations such as Charles must be programmed to find and kick the ball and prevent an opposing team of robots from scoring in the annual RoboCup World Championship soccer competition. Since 1997 the matches have been held in Asia, Europe and the United States.

Once a competition begins, the robots are on their own. The team's programming skills have to account for every soccer player scenario, from kicking and blocking to getting up after falling down.

Spelman, the historically black women's college here, has been sending robots to the competition since 2005, often beating graduate students from prestigious tech universities from Germany to Japan. They had their best finish last year in Osaka, Japan, when the team tied for first place with Fukuoka Institute of Technology in Japan in the humanoid robot category.

Along the way they've attracted enough interest--whether in a local campus cafeteria or an airport in Amsterdam, the Netherlands--to make Miller accustomed to attention.

"Around campus people do recognize our faces; they say, 'Oh, you're on the SpelBots, you're doing the robotics thing. I saw you in Jet magazine.' I really see it when I go abroad," said Miller, a computer science and engineering major.

Early Romance with Robotics

Miller's romance with robotics started early. A self-described "world-traveling military kid," she was on the robotics team at her high school in the Netherlands.

Jonecia Keels, from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., is Miller's co-captain. She was a little less sure of a computer career.

"For a long time I didn't think I was smart enough to get into computer science. I only saw males in the industry and I just didn't think I had what it took to be a computer programmer," said Keels.

Two things helped change her mind. First, the confidence she gained at this women's college.

"I know a big reason why there's not a lot of women in computer science is because of intimidation. At an all-women's school, they already know your capabilities. So it is easier to take leadership roles and go that step further without added stress," said Keels.

Keels adds that false perceptions--of being stuck in a basement lab, all by yourself--also hurt young women's interest in the field. "That's not what it is at all! It's a very social environment, because there's a lot of teamwork involved," she said.

Andrew Williams, the professor who is head of the computer science department and SpelBots' founder and coach, is Keels' second reason for gained confidence.

Source: http://www.womensenews.org/story/women-in-science/100528/spelmans-winning-robotics-team-de-programs-bias