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Cheyney University co-hosted virtual event with more than 400 K-20 teachers around the state

The Pennsylvania Educator Diversity Consortium (PEDC) hosted its annual two-day virtual summit on June 21-22 that brought together more than 400 educators to discuss actions needed to increase the number of ethnically, racially, and linguistically diverse educators, and culturally relevant and sustaining educators and education systems across the Commonwealth.

The event titled, “Disrupt! Reimagine! Mobilize! Strengthening Education by Diversifying the Educator Workforce in Pennsylvania” was organized by PEDC co-founders who represent Cheyney University Pennsylvania, Temple University, East Stroudsburg University, and other professions in education.

This year’s summit had several goals, including identify ways to disrupt inequitable, long-standing systems that hinder the success and access of learners and educators. In addition, the summit envisioned a system where every educator is culturally relevant and sustaining and is valued, respected, and embraced by the education system, and establish action steps to move forward.

“The teacher shortage concern in our Commonwealth is further exacerbated by the large gap in diverse educators,” said PEDC Acting Circle of Leaders Member and University Provost and Chief Academic Officer at Cheyney University. “Cheyney University has made a commitment to be a part of the solution and the changes necessary to move us forward with ensuring that we have a diverse, equitable and inclusive education system in Pennsylvania. This year’s PEDC Summit will help all of us continue to take those actionable steps as we disrupt, reimagine and mobilize!

“The PEDC 2022 Summit comes at an important historical moment. Recent Research for Action (RFA) data reminds us that there is a mass attrition of Black educators across Pennsylvania,” said Dr. Donna-Marie Cole-Malott, PEDC Co-Director and Assistant Professor of Professional and Secondary Education at East Stroudsburg University. “Over the last two decades Philadelphia specifically lost nearly 1,200 Black educators, and the crisis continues to worsen. We must educate ourselves and equip invested partners in education with the necessary tools to address the problems we face. Our summit will do just that, and we encourage everyone who cares about our students to attend and learn ways that they can support equity in our educational system.

The virtual summit included keynote speeches by Farima Pour-Khorshid, who is an Assistant Professor and Teacher Supervisor at the University of San Francisco. She is deeply committed to bridging abolition- and healing-centered engagement in education. Much of her work is rooted in grassroots organizing as she serves in leadership roles within the Teachers 4 Social Justice organization, the Abolitionist Teaching Network, and the National Education for Liberation Network, which organizes the Free Minds Free People conference.

Esther Ohito, an assistant of English Education/Literacy Education at Rutgers University, was also a keynote speaker. She focuses her work on the entangled politics of Blackness, gender, race, and knowledge production at the nexus of curriculum, pedagogy, embodiment, and emotion. Her research is as inspired by Black intellectual traditions of her lived experiences, including herstories as a multilingual, transnational, first-generation Black/African/Kenyan immigrant student in the United States, a teacher in the Chicago Public Schools system, and a U.S-based teacher/educator in various educational spaces across the African diaspora.

Other speakers included Acting Secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Education Eric Hagarty and David Lapp, Director of Policy Research for Research for Action.

“This year’s Summit offers the opportunity for everyone concerned about the education of Pennsylvania’s youth to engage, through speakers, workshops, and small-group discussions, in essential and urgent conversation about the need to diversify the educator workforce in Pennsylvania and establish school cultures that are culturally relevant and sustaining for students, families, teachers, and staff,” said Dr. Juliet Curci, PEDC Co-Director and

Assistant Dean of College Access and Persistence at Temple University. “Everyone is welcome into this work, and indeed, we need widespread support from every sector and corner of the Commonwealth in order for us to collectively create the systems change we seek.

The Pennsylvania Educators Diversity Consortium was founded as a grassroots organization of concerned and committed educators to increase and sustain teacher diversity within the Commonwealth. The virtual summit is now in its third year.

Cheyney University has played an integral role in the creation, development and growth of this statewide effort, established in 2019 to increase teacher diversity, as part of its Breaking Barriers Series initiative. The pillars of both are focused on: recruitment, retention, mentorship, and culturally relevant and sustaining education.

Participants can still register for the event at https://cheyney.edu/pedcsummit2022/ There is no cost to attend but space is limited.

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When Brandon Harrison-Smith arrived at Cheyney University in 2006, he had no desire or intention of becoming a teacher. He planned to pursue an undergraduate degree and then a master’s degree in bioengineering.

He didn’t even know Cheyney existed until the university president at the time walked up to him at a scholarship banquet to recruit him. Now, 16 years later, he has earned his Ph.D. at Temple University and has begun a two-year research fellowship at Purdue University, and is on track to reach his new career goal, professor.

But the narrative of how Brandon, now also known as Dr. Harrison-Smith, caught the teaching bug is the best part of the story because it happened by accident.

In his freshman year, word quickly spread that he was highly intelligent, so students in the dorm began showing up, asking for tutoring.

“Students would randomly knock on my door asking for help. Tutoring wasn’t something I was used to,” he said. “I went over to the academic success center to say I was already tutoring so many students that I wanted a job doing it, figuring I might as well get paid for my trouble.”

But the center did not hire first-year students, so they told him to come back next year, which he did. He got the job and continued tutoring throughout his time as an undergraduate.

“Oddly enough, I never thought I’d grow a passion for teaching and tutoring, but I did over time, Harrison-Smith said. “Just having so many people run up and hug me out of nowhere and tell me ‘You’re the reason I passed and am able to graduate’ were very fulfilling moments in my life. I still didn’t have any intentions of pursuing being a professor or anything like that.”

Cheyney professor of chemistry and chairperson of the Department of Natural and Applied Sciences, Adedoyin Adeyiga, Ph.D., has known Harrison-Smith since he was a freshman. He said he saw the same transformation to teaching in his student that he experienced himself as a college student.

“I was bound for medical school but as a graduate student I taught, and I got hooked,” Adeyiga said. “I always tell students to go for the passion and what makes you happy. I tell people like Brandon teaching gives you instant gratification. Seeing all the students I’ve taught who have advanced to Ph.Ds., and MDs, money can’t buy that. Brandon now knows what I’m talking about.”

Harrison-Smith took full advantage of internship opportunities, working every summer. First, he interned as a building engineer at the VA Medical Center in Coatesville. The next year he conducted nanofabrication research at Penn State, Main Campus. In his junior year, he worked at the Environmental Protection Agency in Philadelphia. Finally, in his senior year, he participated in a U.S. Department of Agriculture study on catfish, with Cheyney Professor Steven Hughes.

Harrison-Smith then went on to work at IBM as an engineer, but after a few years decided to pursue a master’s degree at Temple University. While there, he returned to Cheyney as a professional tutor. He took the job to earn some extra money, but he also realized he was benefiting beyond that point.

“I thoroughly enjoyed tutoring the students and mentoring them, and what started to slowly grow there was this idea that I potentially wanted to pursue academia. Instead of just getting my master’s to make me more competitive in the industry, I now wanted to put myself on a track to be a professor,” he said.

From the master’s program, Harrison-Smith went on to his Ph.D. at Temple, all the while continuing to tutor, eventually advancing to adjunct professor at Cheyney, teaching biology lab, academic learning communities, and chemistry.

For his dissertation, Harrison-Smith designed a novel low-cost diagnostic device that measures bilirubin levels in newborn babies with jaundice. The device looks like a cellphone.

In his post-doctorate fellowship, Harrison-Smith wants to continue to develop low-cost diagnostic devices like that one and address racial bias as it pertains to optical diagnostic techniques. He has begun working on building a photoacoustic gas sensor that can detect viruses.

After that, Dr. Harrison-Smith plans to catch on as an associate professor and do what he has come to love – teach. He said it all traces back to Cheyney.

“Cheyney represents a developmental period in my life,” he said. “I was able to grow by leaps and bounds. I went in one way and came out another. I believe that’s because I took advantage of a lot of opportunities, and I was willing to push myself and grow. Cheyney was one of the fundamental building blocks of my life.”

Fortunately for future college students, Harrison-Smith plans to pay similar opportunities forward.

Historical non-profit founded by descendants of free African Americans supports the nation’s first HBCU with gift for disadvantaged students

The Dennis Farm Charitable Land Trust (DFCLT) recently donated $10,000 to Cheyney University of Pennsylvania’s Foundation to support the university’s efforts that have provided a new vision and path for the nation’s first HBCU. The donation will be applied toward scholarships for disadvantaged students.

The DFCLT is a non-profit that was created to preserve a rare-and beautiful-historic and cultural resource in northeastern Pennsylvania. The organization donated the gift in memory of Cheyney alumna, Edith Dennis Moore Stephens, Class of 1960, a sixth-generation direct descendant of the Dennis family who valued her years at Cheyney; and in recognition of the educational opportunities Cheyney, has provided to African American men and women since 1837.

“We are presenting this gift on the 206th birthday of our ancestor, Henry W. Dennis, a free, educated African American man born in Vermont, who left us a legacy of hard work, education, and achievement that we are passing forward,” stated DFCLT’s Board of Directors. “We hope our contribution will help the Cheyney Foundation to continue its legacy of educating young African American men and women, as they prepare for the challenges of the future.”

“The Cheyney Foundation would like to thank Mr. Lonnie Moore and the Dennis Farm Charitable Trust for the $10,000 donation. The funding honors the legacy of Mr. Moore’s mother Edith Dennis-Moore Stephens, a Cheyney alumna,” said Dr. Larry J. Walker, Class of 1996, Chair of The Cheyney Foundation. “We look forward to continuing to work with the Trust.”

“We were humbled to not only receive a donation from the Dennis Farm, but also delighted to learn of the Farm’s remarkable history,” said Bryan Phillips, Class of 1993, Treasurer of The Cheyney Foundation. “With its foundation dating back to the 1700s, the Dennis Farm predates our beloved Cheyney University. I pray that the two Living Legends continue to endure the tests of time!”

The land that comprises the Dennis Farm was settled by the family of Prince Perkins, free African Americans who moved there in 1793 with the original wave of settlement into the region following the American Revolution. Descendants of the Perkins’ granddaughter, Angeline Perkins Dennis, and her husband, Henry Dennis, have retained ownership of the 153-acre property into to the 21^st century. This continuous, documented ownership of property by African Americans, in a predominantly white county in the northeast, represents a little-known and remarkable story in American history and holds lessons for us today.

Cheyney students have visited The Dennis Farm in the past and, in 2019, two Cheyney students participated in DFCLT’s essay contest on racial understanding and were awarded cash prizes. It as an educational and cultural site for scholars, researchers, educators, cultural heritage tourists, school groups and others interested in extraordinary history.

The Cheyney Foundation plays an important role in the university’s transformational efforts, which have created a new applied research institute, new strategic partners, and a new cutting-edge approach to students’ success. For more information about the University’s Resurgence fundraising campaign, please visit https://cheyney.edu/resurgence/

For more information about DFCLT, please visit www.thedennisfarm.org.

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Among the many opportunities Cheyney University offers to its STEM students is the chance to participate in cutting edge research and gain valuable experience as interns with the science and technology companies that have chosen the campus’ Science Center as a base of operations.

Keystone Honors scholarship student Chalante Thompson, who entered Cheyney in the fall of 2019, is one of those interns, gaining experience and new skills in the Navrogen, Inc. lab. Thompson, who is a biology major with a pre-med concentration, said she knew she wanted to have an internship with one of the companies and Navrogen, a biopharmaceutical company, stood out for her.

“I was going through the internship selection process and after looking at Navrogen, a light went on in my head. I knew I wanted them to choose me and they did. I’m really enjoying it,” said Thompson.

She continued, “Navrogen is doing some very important cancer research. One of the things we’re doing is tackling how cancers, specifically lung and breast cancers, develop their own kinds of immunities as a defense to treatments. It’s a real battle. The cancer cells produce proteins that block a patient’s immune system from attacking and killing them and we’re trying to figure out how these cells adapt, is it something on the cellular level. This will be a huge breakthrough if this research is successful.”

Thompson said she plans on becoming a general surgeon and even when she was a child, she knew she wanted to become a physician.

“I felt it was best to approach that goal with a solid foundation in biology,” she said.

Navrogen was founded by Drs. Nicholas Nicolaides and Luigi Grasso after they sold their previous biopharmaceutical company. Navrogen’s researchers seek to discover new cancer treatments and grow operations to meet the company’s full research and development value potential.

“We were very excited about bringing our research to Cheyney’s labs and working with the university’s students,” Nicolaides said. “When we started our prior company one of the things we did was to take on student interns that we trained as we grew and we’re replicating that here at Cheyney.”

Nicolaides explained that they outgrew their previous location and were looking for a new site. He reached out to officials in Chester County and was pointed in the direction of Cheyney.

“I met with the provost and other Cheyney officials and I knew this was going to be a great partnership,” said Nicolaides. “Giving STEM students hands on training and experience is always a plus.”

Navrogen’s founders and employees have years of experience in training undergraduate and graduate level students through business and scientific internship programs. They have been working with the university’s administration to create coursework that can benefit Cheyney students pursuing careers in the biological sciences and pharmaceutical industries.

“Since we came to Cheyney, we’ve worked with five students and all of them have been outstanding,” Nicolaides said. “Chalante is equally outstanding and we’ve been working with her since January. We saw real promise in her. Sometimes you get interns who aren’t exactly sure of what they want to pursue. So far, we’re five-for-five at Cheyney.”

According to Nicolaides, an intern spends three or four weeks working with other researchers before being allowed to pursue their own research. Each internship is 10 hours a week for 12 weeks. When students complete the internship, their work is evaluated by the company accompanied by a report the student prepares to describe their research project.

“They learn fast and become more and more independent as they progress,” said Nicolaides. “I always encourage the interns to remember their passion.”

Chalante’s experience enforces her decision to choose Cheyney for pursing her undergraduate degree.

“My great aunt is a Cheyney alum and when I toured the campus, it felt right,” Thompson said. “I’m not a fan of big schools and Cheyney is a tight knit community. The professors really care about seeing their students succeed. Cheyney’s partnership with Navrogen has given me experience that I probably wouldn’t have received at another school.”

The RACP grant marks next step in university’s successful transformational efforts to attract science-based companies to campus, bringing innovation, revenue, and paid student internships  

CHEYNEY, PA – Cheyney University of Pennsylvania’s plans to serve as a regional bioscience innovation center for private companies has received a major boost – a $5 million grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The “ThinkUbator” will extend the model Cheyney has been building since 2017 with life science companies moving their operations to campus. Most of those companies operate in the university’s Science Center, providing a revenue stream to the school and paid internship opportunities for Cheyney students who work for these on-campus companies.

The ThinkUbator, which will be built out in a 70,000-square-foot building, is designed by Integrated Project Services, LLC (IPS), the same company that built Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID vaccine labs. The four-sided building with an open middle sets up perfectly for lab space and will accommodate the needs of a wide range of companies from small start-ups to larger companies that have the need for greater space.

The building will allow small businesses to incubate new programs and work with other like-minded scientists in a communal space.

“The companies already operating on our campus working with our student interns provided proof that our concept works for all parties, the university, the students and the businesses,” said Cheyney President Aaron A. Walton. “The businesses we have brought onto our campus and into our lab space have a real interest in being here. This grant from the Wolf administration gives us a major spark to continue to expand on that model in a more robust way. The financial commitment on the part of the Governor Wolf, US Senator Bob Casey, State Senator Vincent Hughes, and other supporters is greatly appreciated.”

“As America’s first historically Black university, Cheyney has a long history of supporting determined, innovative students and putting them on the path to a brighter future,” Governor Wolf said. “The ThinkUbator is helping to bring the life sciences community to Cheyney’s campus, through partnerships that will advance groundbreaking research while also helping to train a new generation of life science leaders and innovators.”

The Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) grant, along with an additional $400,000 in federal appropriations funding advanced by Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Bob Casey’s office, will go toward building the first phase of the project, which will cost $10-$11 million. Mosaic Development Partners, the Philadelphia-based African American-owned real estate development company which has helped guide Cheyney’s campus transformational efforts over the past three years, is leading the effort.

“We believe we can build the most diverse pipeline of student talent available for companies in the greater Philadelphia region that are looking for science-based students that have real-life experience,” said Mosaic Principal and Managing Member Greg Reaves. “These students are, and will be, working side-by-side with great technicians, scientists and physicians. We want them to get hands-on experiences while they’re in school.”

The Chester County Economic Development Council (CCEDC) has also played a major supporting role on moving this project forward and will be helping with a significant portion of the financing.

“CCEDC and Cheyney University have been longtime partners, so establishing the university as a center for life sciences innovation through the ThinkUbator is an exciting next chapter,” said Patrick Hayakawa, CCEDC’s Vice President of Innovation & Marketing. “We see a rising need in the region for wet labs, space for young companies to grow and collaborate, and for life sciences workforce development. The ThinkUbator addresses all these components and brings high-quality jobs and training opportunities to the county. To have it housed at the nation’s first HBCU makes this project even more unique and impactful.”

The project will renovate the building’s infrastructure including the HVAC system, increased electrical capacity, plumbing, and new windows. The interior space will be renovated into bench space (the space where work is prepped, experiments take place, readings are taken, and lab equipment is stored and used), wet labs (labs with sinks), a training facility, and cold and dry storage. Special equipment and casement will also be installed. This will allow the ThinkUbator to offer biologics, cell, and gene therapy companies the opportunity to pursue their science in a campus setting.

IPS, one of the world’s top lab designers, developed the idea for the ThinkUbator before the original COVID outbreak, but put the project on hold until after it became clear people would again be willing to work together in person, notwithstanding the current temporary surge from the Omicron variant.

Thomas Piombino, IPS’s Vice President and Biotechnology Process Architect, said for him as a Chester County native and his company, taking on this project is part of their mission.

“We want to develop an ecosystem that promotes entrepreneurs that are minority, or not, and can use the student population to grow their business,” Piombino said. “We are positioning the building to accommodate a company that needs a whole lab and wants that autonomy where there’s not a company right next to them doing similar work, and we want to also be able to rent a lab bench or two. We also want to attract companies that aren’t even at the bench yet. These could be start-ups that have a great idea and maybe some foundational science or a service to offer the life sciences industry and need space to incubate their company.”

Cheyney’s 275-acre campus sits amid a beautiful area on the Chester-Delaware County border. The university’s model monetizes that real estate by appealing to companies who prefer to operate in this kind of a setting and with motivated students available to help them build on their ideas. Cheyney has intentionally attracted science and math students, projecting that within two years 30 percent of all students will be STEM majors.

Another partner in this venture is CBS BioPharma, a Philadelphia pharmaceutical and biotech company that has been instrumental is creating Cheyney’s academic partnership with the Wistar Institute life sciences program.

The company will open a pilot plant as a contract manufacturer to support start-up biotech companies or companies with products at the end if their lifecycle to scale up or scale down production.

“There has always been a gap in minority representation in the biotech-life sciences field,” said CBS BioPharma Managing Partner Calvin R. Snowden Jr. “By launching this ThinkUbator at Cheyney and having these companies on campus, my hope is not only that these companies thrive but also that it leads to opportunities in the industry.”

President Walton believes that making Cheyney a regional bioscience center will help the university grow its student body from its current enrollment of about 650 and continue to attract high achieving students. He also said recruiting for businesses will continue during construction.

“We already have the interest. We just don’t have the space,” Walton said. “There are a number of businesses that would prefer not to go into a large city, and so we want have a home for them. We don’t want them to leave the state or this area. We offer an alternative where they can do the work they want to do where they want to be. So why not do it at an intimate college campus like Cheyney?”

Mosaic’s Reaves said construction should begin in the coming months.

“Given the urgency around life sciences, we should have the first phase done in 2023,” he said. “The additional phases will follow as we generate more interest and financing.”

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Cheyney University provides many benefits and opportunities to its students to learn, grow academically and envision prosperous careers for themselves. Among those opportunities is the chance for STEM students to participate in paid internships in the different science and technology companies based on the university’s sprawling campus.

Sophomore Kishore Owusu is one of those students. A major in biology with a concentration in pre-med, he is a member of the STEM Club, a student trustee and an intern at the ASI Chemicals facility. ASI Chemicals is a startup company that manufactures chemicals for pharmaceutical products. Kishore said he’s been given a unique opportunity that affords him real life experience in the sciences and broadens his view of his chosen career trajectory.

His path to an internship started through a mix of networking and being part of a cohort of students helping in the different labs, which includes the STEM Club. He would help organize the labs and keep them orderly and often hung out in the Science Center, talking to different professors.

“That’s how they came to know my name,” said Owusu. “One day Ms. Atkins (Vanessa Atkins, Director of the Life Sciences and Technology Hub) asked if I knew of anyone who might be interested in working as an intern for ASI. I didn’t think it was for me, but at the time I had misconceptions about organic chemicals. I thought it would be very hard, so I gave her someone else’s name. She asked me why was I offering the position to someone else? So, I put myself in the running.”

Owusu said ASI provided him with several shadowing sessions and then offered him an internship for the semester.

“What I’m doing is not what you would expect an intern to do,” he said. “I’m doing chemical analyses, helping to synthesize organic compounds and molecules, and running through different chemical reactions. It’s very involved and detailed. It’s not every day that a student is working with a company that’s making real products and moving that production process along. I have the title of intern, but what I’m doing is exactly what the staff does every day.”

ASI Chemicals launched its operations in the university’s Science Center in 2020. It is part of the growing list of corporate partners that have set up shop on the campus.

Rich Tyburski, president of ASI Chemicals, said when the company was looking for lab space, he knew Cheyney was the right fit for a home base. ASI was formed by two principals formerly with IsoSciences. Tyburski said they were looking for students seeking a science degree to intern with them but also students who may be interested in seeking business or marketing degrees.

He also said he recognized early in their relationship that Kishore was perfect for the intern position.

“I started as an intern for a company right before my junior year at Villanova University, which was how I got my first job,” said Tyburski. “That company hired me as an entry-level scientist, and I worked my way up. There’s nothing like getting that real-world experience and that’s what we’re doing for Cheyney’s students.

Tyburski continued, “Kishore jumped right in, which was unusual because our work can seem a little daunting, but he picked up things quickly. We give students hands on experience with the technology to learn what a career in this business is like. You could definitely say he’s raised the bar.”

Owusu’s first visit to the campus was when his older brother Samuel graduated. Kishore said he was proud and inspired by his brother who was valedictorian that year and went on to study medicine at Morehouse College. He said if he were talking to a high school student thinking about higher education, he would definitely recommend Cheyney.

“I had the opportunity to see the campus and the way the students and faculty were so enthusiastic about education. I also knew the history of the university and that made me realize I wanted to be here,” he said. “There are a lot of great programs and opportunities at Cheyney that people who don’t choose this school overlook. As a student trustee, I understand a little more than most of how President (Aaron) Walton has rebuilt Cheyney. The university would not be expanding and growing the way it is without him; I’m so grateful for him and proud to be a part of this university.”