Education vacation
As an undergraduate, Angela Hedley, MEd’02, had her career path mapped out: major in economics, minor in marketing, get a job in fashion merchandising and buying.
Then a summer job showed her a better fit. Today, Hedley is an award-winning Boston high-school teacher who recently helped develop curricula for the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls, in South Africa.
"After my junior year at the University of Buffalo, I took a job at a summer Bible school, working with kids six to twelve years old," she says, remembering her change in course. "I was the assistant director and taught arts and crafts, and sports."
Education was her true passion, the Bronx native decided. She completed her economics degree, then came to Northeastern for graduate school, drawn by its focus on urban education. As a student, Hedley taught history part-time at the Health Careers Academy, a charter school housed at Northeastern that helps ninth through twelfth graders prepare for college and a health-professions career. The focus, Hedley explains, is to "reduce the disparity of minority representation in health care."
Once she had earned her master’s in education, she became a full-time faculty member at the Health Careers Academy, teaching U.S. history, modern world history, and an African American studies elective. In 2006, she was honored as one of Boston’s Teachers of the Year. Soon came another recognition: getting tapped to work with teachers hired for Oprah’s academy.
This past February, Hedley traveled to Oprah’s school, in Henley-on-Klip, just south of Johannesburg. "I did some professional development there on closing the achievement gap," she says, "and demonstrated models of teaching that can be used in any classroom."
Now, to broaden the impact she can have in the world, Hedley is completing a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study in administration at Simmons College. "There is only so much change you can make from the classroom," she says. "You can make a larger change as an administrator. My mission is to allow urban students to receive the same kind of education their suburban counterparts do."
— Katy Kramer, MA’00
Enhancing student outcomes through experiential learning is one of five defining themes in the Academic Initiative.
The Good Sport
It’s simple. "You just translate the competition," says former Husky football captain Antwaine Smith, BPH’97. As a defensive back, he knew how to solve any challenge—something he still does in his work heading the Baltimore office run by the Center for the Study of Sport in Society.
"Many people think being an athlete is different from being at work," says Smith, a Baltimore native who returned to his roots for the post. Not so. "My competitive spirit makes me good at what I do."
His job is tackling social problems before they get a foothold by bringing a message of nonviolence into the city’s troubled middle and high schools. Through awareness-raising sessions and longer workshops, the youngsters hear straight talk about date rape, violence prevention, conflict resolution, and appropriate behavior. Sometimes the workshops are taken on the road, to educate high-profile college basketball and football teams.
The regional outpost replicates the programs offered at Sport in Society’s headquarters, located on the Northeastern campus. After working there for seven years, Smith—who’s married to Anika Deshields Smith, BA’94—became the Baltimore office’s first regional manager, in 2005.
Smith recently partnered with the Baltimore Housing Authority in an effort to reach even more underserved youth. "The program offers an alternative to what they see in their lives," he says. "It creates hope and the potential for cultural change. They can relate to me because I’m from here."
He hopes to be an aspirational model for kids, Smith explains. "I want them to say, ‘I can do that. I can graduate from high school, go to college, graduate from college, and go on to become a professional.’" There’s an even bigger challenge he has in mind, too. "Ultimately, my goal is to create jobs," he says, "so people who don’t have, have an opportunity to earn."
Smith understands how important caring support is for kids: "There wasn’t a person I was connected to when I was younger. Now I am that person."
Touchdown.
— Katy Kramer, MA’00
Enhancing student outcomes through experiential learning is one of five defining themes in the Academic Initiative.
A Moving Experience
At his final Northeastern co-op, Matthew Kurtzman, BA'07, had to forget about midafternoon runs to Starbucks. Coffee breaks meant chowing down on coconut, peanuts, and fried sweet potatoes.
Welcome to Lagos, Nigeria.
The change in scene was just what he wanted. The Charleston, South Carolina, native, who had already worked stints at Tyco Healthcare and Bose Corporation, had been eager for an international experience.
After countless e-mails and phone interviews with the Pepsi-7UP Bottling Company in Nigeria, he landed a post as a transportation analyst, studying the efficiency of trucks departing the Lagos bottling plant for distribution centers around the country.
Kurtzman spent June through December 2006 in Lagos, the former capital of Nigeria and one of Africa’s most populous urban areas, second only to Cairo. Even the climate in the country, located on the West African coast, offered business-logistics lessons.
"The first three months were their rainy season," he says. "It rained torrentially a couple hours each day. There were enormous puddles in the roads, and every time it rained you would have to reroute your trip." After the deluge months came the dry season, when daily temps reached into the 80s.
Infrastructure proved no less challenging. "I had to learn how to accomplish goals with few of the normal resources," says Kurtzman. "Much of the country is in a state of dilapidation, including the roads and the legal system."
It was, in retrospect, enviable training. "I learned how to motivate people when you don't know the language, the culture, or how business takes place," he says. Such lessons will no doubt help him fast-track at his postgraduation gig, working as a senior transportation analyst for the office-products supplier Staples in Framingham, Massachusetts.
Even now, Kurtzman admits, beverage containers and transport have their place in his life, though in a slightly different way. When he's not rock climbing or biking, he likes to build ships in bottles.
— Katy Kramer, MA’00
Enhancing student outcomes through experiential learning is one of five defining themes in the Academic Initiative.