Community Scholars are neighborhood achievers

From left, graduates Rashida Stamps, Hawabu Abubakar and Rasheda Robinson participated in the Community Scholars Program under the guidance of Thomas Anderson, associate vice president for community relations.

“Acres of diamonds are to be found in this city, and you are to find them,” wrote Temple University founder Russell Conwell in his famous work, Acres of Diamonds. “Many have found them…not in far-away mountains or in distant seas; they are in your own back yard if you will but dig for them.” Three of Temple’s graduates in the Class of 2004 who attended Temple through the Community Scholars program represent the diamonds Conwell envisioned. Accounting major Hawabu Abubakar, a native of Ghana who moved to America eight years ago, and Rasheda Robinson, an elementary education major with aspirations to pursue graduate studies in social work, are graduates of William Penn High School. And Rashida Stamps, a Central High grad, juggled her kinesiology studies with a stint as a walk-on track team member.

“They are all achievers and will be very successful out in the world,” said Thomas Anderson, associate vice president for community relations, noting that students must gain admission to the University and be recommended by their schools or communities to qualify for the scholarship. “Early on, they learned the skills they needed to stay focused. Despite outside pressures, they had the fortitude to make it happen.”

But they couldn’t have made it happen without help, all three said.

Networking for success

“Without the scholarship, I don’t know that I would have been able to go to college,” said Abubakar, who spent her high school years just three blocks from Temple’s Main Campus. “And through the program, we networked, shared ideas and got the feedback we needed to be successful.”

Her interest in accounting arose from her original desire to pursue a career in international business. With accounting skills, she said, she knew she’d always have a job. Before she goes down that road, however, she has a slight detour she needs to take.

“I’m going back to Ghana for six weeks to see my family,” she said. Although her brother and father also live in the Philadelphia area, she hasn’t seen her mother or other family members in eight years.

Twice the first in her family

Rasheda Robinson and Rashida Stamps are staying close to home after graduation.

“Temple was a big eye-opener for me,” said Robinson, who was the first from her family to graduate from high school, much less attend college. “It’s a whole different world, and all my everyday routines changed when I came here.

“It was a world I had a window to, through books, because I loved to read when I was young,” continued Robinson, whose teachers noticed her passion for reading and inspired her to follow in their footsteps. “I became a teacher because teachers were the ones who got me here. They always made me feel that I could do it, that I could go as far as I wanted to go.”

College has given Robinson a different outlook on life—and on parenthood. Her infant daughter, Jayana, has been her motivation, she said, and helped her appreciate her prospects that much more.

“Temple University has helped show me that I’m as smart as the other students,” she said. “My goal is to become a counselor and stay in Philadelphia, so I can show that to other kids.”

A needed sense of connection

Rashida Stamps also plans to stay in Philadelphia, where she hopes to teach physical education to K–5 students. Like her fellow Community Scholars, Stamps has done volunteer outreach work in the community. But her experience went beyond tutoring and reading to students in area public schools.

“I spent two hours a week volunteering at the Black Women in Sports Foundation,” she said. “And I also worked with bringing sports to African-American kids that they wouldn’t traditionally be exposed to—tennis, lacrosse, fencing and stuff like that.”

Stamps added that regular meetings for Community Scholars allowed them to network with one another, which was a big help to everyone, but she enjoyed the flexibility that she found within the program.

“It was up to us to use what we shared at the meetings,” said Stamps, who has maintained a 3.8 GPA through her Temple career. “But I love that they let us do what we needed to do, and go to school.” — Helen H. Thompson