Commencement Date: May 17, 8 a.m. Irwin Belk Complex
Andrew Alexander attended Ardrey Kell High School in south Charlotte, playing on the football and basketball teams. Though African American, the athlete and STEM major had always attended majority institutions and struggled with feelings of discomfort in an HBCU setting. He credits the diversity, mentorship and culture of community at his alma mater with bringing him into a fuller sense of self. “Smith taught me that I didn’t have to fit in with a crowd; to be proud of what made me different,” he said. He became the Golden Bulls quarterback and a leader on campus. Alexander found he enjoyed going against the grain, especially when it came to the “dumb jock” stereotype. He was recruited early on into the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program, which helps students successfully complete STEM degree programs. He majored in biology and will attend medical school at UNC-Chapel Hill in the fall. He looks forward to becoming a doctor and interacting with patients, especially other athletes.
Jordan Baker of Sacramento, Calif., will be attending American University to study strategic communications, new media, web content and online interaction. She’s a communications arts major who counts Soledad O’Brien and Melissa Harris Perry as her media idols. Baker is a member of the Communication Arts Student Association (CASA), was a founding member of the relaunched student chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, and was elected vice president of the Alpha Kappa Alpha, Inc. sorority’s Gamma Delta chapter on campus. Baker works for the United College Action Network as their social media planner. She has written for the Bulls Eye student news site and recently presented her senior thesis at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Undergraduate Conference in N.Y.
Charlene Montas has been accepted into Nordstrom’s retail management program, and plans to parlay her love of fashion and knowledge of public relations into a career as personal publicist to the stars. The communications major is a leader on JCSU’s Luv-a-Bulls cheerleading team and founded the Collegiate Sisters for Action volunteer group, and wrapped up a summer internship at a popular recording studio in Miami. Finishing at JCSU was a dream for the Haitian-American student, who attended more than five different schools before college, and lived in a Canadian refugee camp when she was 14. Because of this instability, her high school grades were not stellar, but JCSU officials saw potential in the prospective student.
“Smith gave me a chance,” Montas said. She has this advice for incoming freshmen: “When you come to JCSU, don’t come looking for Atlanta or Howard. Come here expecting a family.”
Sergio Montesdeoca hails from Guayaquil, Ecuador and will be working at Duke Energy starting June 1 as an IT associate. Montesdeoca will be the first person in his family to complete a degree; both parents attended college back in Ecuador but did not finish. His parents were very supportive of his educational goals, but weren’t savvy about the process. “Parents from different countries want you to succeed but they don’t know how to get you there. You get good grades and they think that’s it. They don’t know about SATs, community service, extracurricular activities, how all of that builds a strong college application,” Montesdeoca said. “JCSU came through for me.” The University awarded him a Duke Energy scholarship. At JCSU, he joined the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and became a founding member of the campus’ Lambda Theta Phi colony. The historically Latino fraternity embodied the values he wanted to represent, of education and community.
“We aren’t all Latino but we all came from immigrant backgrounds and made achievements through education, so we wanted academics to be the No. 1 thing we espoused,” said Montesdeoca.
Montesdeoca plans to continue contributing to the community after graduating. He plans to volunteer to raise minority students’ awareness of college opportunities, especially at JCSU. “I won’t turn my back on my alma mater; I want to show the world that the students here can get the job done in corporate America.”
Brencis Sanford’s selection of Johnson C. Smith came as naturally as his golf swing. The information systems major said the strong computer science department coupled with the lure of playing JCSU golf was too potent of a combination.
“What really solidified it was the sheer number of opportunities here. My golf coach William Watkins works in the IT department, so he was able to give me direction for both my game and my studies,” Sanford said. “He helped me navigate what was best for me. In my field, jobs are there for the taking.”
Sanford became a systems database analyst in the IT department, and stayed with all four of his undergraduate years. He conducted research at the University of Kentucky, became involved in the University chapter of the STARS Computing Corps, and earlier this year attended the IT-oLogy conference (a non-profit collaboration of businesses, academic institutions and organizations dedicated to growing the IT talent pipeline), where he spoke about opportunities in the major. Sanford has accepted a position at Wells Fargo in their business systems consulting department. Eventually, his goal is to start his own company. Sanford feels he couldn’t have chosen a better school. “It’s the level of support I got at JCSU—I wasn’t going to get that anywhere else,” he said.
Nora Bittle graduates from Metropolitan College with a B.S. in social work, and will continue her education in JCSU’s MSW program in the fall. She loves helping people, and her special talent is throwing teas, which she’s done for Girl Scouts, the National Association of Black Social Workers, Florence Crittenton Services of North Carolina (a non-profit that provides support services to pregnant, at-risk girls), and retirement homes, to name a few. Bittle, whose only clue to her age are slightly greying eyebrows, has a resilience that shines through in all of her accomplishments. While a student, the president of Phi Alpha National Honor Society endured a staggering string of tragedies, losing her son, her husband, her brother and a close cousin within a few short years. In January, she herself suffered a stroke.
“I didn’t realize I wasn’t dealing with the pain of their deaths; I was just going on. And I think God just wanted me to slow down and heal, inside and out,” Bittle said. “I couldn’t help anyone if I didn’t help myself.”
Bittle made a full recovery, and is poised to begin the MSW program at JCSU with a specialty in gerontology.
About Johnson C. Smith University
Founded in 1867, Johnson C. Smith University is an independent, close-knit urban university located in Charlotte, N.C. It has a growing national reputation for integrating the liberal arts with business, the sciences and technology in ways that empower tomorrow’s diverse entrepreneurial citizens and leaders. Offering 23 fields of study, including a master’s degree in social work, to more than 1,400 students from a variety of ethnic, socioeconomic and geographic backgrounds, the university’s excellent academic programs focus on servant leadership, civic engagement and global responsibility. For more information about JCSU, visit www.jcsu.edu or follow the university on social media sites Facebook , Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
Posted By: Reginald Culpepper
Wednesday, May 13th 2015 at 1:49PM
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