PRIZE Graduates Hit Record High Number

You can add another thing the “1” in PR1ZE represents: One heck of a graduating class.

The University of Cincinnati spring commencement ceremonies will feature 19 students who are members of the

Putting Retention 1st in the Zest for Excellence

program. It’s the largest number of graduates since the program began three years ago.

PR1ZE is a faculty and administration support initiative for historically underrepresented minority students, particularly focusing on African-American students in the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences. The program was founded in fall quarter 2008 by associate professor of Africana studies Kenneth Ghee and Director of Student Retention Initiatives Carol Tonge Mack.

“The PR1ZE faculty and staff mentors are a vital part of the wind beneath our students’ wings, giving them guidance and showing genuine interest in them as students but more so as valued human beings with great potential,” Ghee says.

The primary goal of PR1ZE is to retain and graduate African-American students, and Mack says seeing this many students from the program ready to graduate validates the support she and Ghee have received over the years from Dean Valerie Hardcastle, faculty, staff and the extended PR1ZE family.

“Students worked diligently to get to this place in their academic career,” Tonge Mack says. “They kept their eyes on the ‘PR1ZE.’ For many of them, there were personal struggles which could’ve impeded graduation. However, with a phone call, email, text, kind word and additional encouragement from their mentor, they made it.”

The following students are PR1ZE members who plan to graduate this spring:

Barbara Abbey

Alicia Aldridge

Brittney Fields

Jeralyn Boyd

Jamille Collins

Brittany Fitzgerald

Julu Garley

Bethel Kidane

Henry Knight

Keevan Marion

Cordelia Myles

Caressa Sams

Jasmine S. Smith

Shanneque Smith

Anastasia Tarpeh

Danielle Thomas

Fatima Thomas

James A. Walker

Ashley Woods