Back in the 1980’s when the Cosby Show was king of prime time television, the story line sent one of the Huxtable daughters to a historically black college. The episodes of her at a black college were so well received by the viewing audience, they inspired a spin-off show called “A Different World.”
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Erika Duckworth with Dr. John McClain, center, and Tom Harvey. |
From June 9 to July 20, five Omaha Public School students experienced a different world — but this time very real — world, too. They attended Gilbert Academy — a six-week college preparatory program at Dillard University, a historically black college in New Orleans. The OPS connection developed as part of UNMC’s historic affiliation agreement with Dillard University inaugurated this year.
Celebrating their experience
Earlier this month, John McClain, Ph.D., UNMC associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, and Tom Harvey, OPS assistant superintendent, presented special certificates to OPS’s Gilbert Academy graduates at a breakfast honoring the students and their families.
Harvey, Jocelyn Perkins, his assistant, and Lisa Jewell, director of UNMC’s Community Academy, recruited and planned the trip to New Orleans for five local African American students. In preparation for the students’ journey, the three coordinators visited Dillard and reviewed the entire program. Harvey also returned to Dillard during the program to review the progress of the Omaha students.
“It’s rare for African-American students at this age to leave home for six weeks,” Harvey said. “This program really required the support of parents. Also, the students we chose needed to demonstrate self-discipline and the ability to make good individual decisions.”
Harvey said the goal of participating in Gilbert Academy is for students to experience an actual college environment on a daily basis. He wanted students to see how much more is available to them, in terms of getting a good education, and to lift their sense of expectations about themselves. In addition, the no-nonsense college prep curriculum gives the students a taste of the demands of college academics.
Omaha father praises program
“My daughter came back to Omaha a different person,” said Robert Duckworth, father of Erika Duckworth, a 10th grade student at Bryan High School. “I think she has a better sense of the real world. Gilbert Academy definitely increased her interest in attending college.
“The experience validated a lot of the things her mother and I have tried to instill in her. Erika had to get up at 6 a.m. and not mess around during the day to stay on schedule for her class work. We always wanted our daughter to realize that a college education can give her a good head start in life. I think Gilbert Academy showed her how it can be done.”
Students “wanted to learn”
Erika said it felt good to be among such a large group of black students who wanted to do well academically. It is often not as easy when she’s one of only a handful of black students at Bryan. Academically inclined black students often face stereotyping by other students — even other black students — so she was overjoyed to hang out with bright, talented students from across the country including Washington, D.C., Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, and Atlanta.
“I was especially surprised and happy to see how well everybody got along,” Erika said. “We were different in that we came from so many different cities and backgrounds, but we were alike in that we all wanted to learn. During the orientation session, I was the spokesperson for the Omaha group. All the other kids would ask questions of each new group. The other students knew almost nothing about Omaha or Nebraska and were actually shocked to learn there are thousands of black people in Omaha.”
Growing up at Gilbert Academy
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Isaiah Sayles with his mother, Monique Sayles. |
Isaiah’s mother, Monique Sayles, was not only surprised by how much maturing her son did in just six weeks, but was elated to learn about his new found interest and pride in African American history and heritage.
“It was hard for me to let Isaiah go to Dillard because he’s the baby of the family and was always overshadowed by his older brothers at home,” she said. “I also felt that a lot of younger kids might get down to Dillard and think it was all going to be fun and games. But Isaiah adjusted well, made a lot of new friends and grew up into the program.
“Also, many of his schoolmates at Gilbert Academy were shocked that Isaiah had a limited knowledge of black history. Isaiah was always calling me and telling me about another famous persons he learned about or some other great event in our history. He told me the kids were always asking him, “Just what do they teach up there in Nebraska about black people anyway?
“I really think Gilbert Academy gave Isaiah the chance to find his own personality. I really like the atmosphere of the program and what they were trying to teach these kids about how to become responsible adults living in the real world.”
Other attendees
The other OPS students who attended Gilbert Academy were Kimbria Dowden, 10th grade, and Cameron Lambert, 11th grade, at Northwest High School; and Shabazz Ramsey, 10th grade, at North High School.
More than 90 percent of the graduates of Gilbert Academy go on to study at the collegiate level with many attending Dillard University.