Home Page
November 22, 2009
2007-06-25 - BHCC Grad Named Jack Kent Cooke Scholar
Boston, June 25, 2007 – Kimberly S.M. Woo, a Bunker Hill Community College 2007 graduate and a statewide champion for homeless and battered mothers, is one of 51 high-achieving students to win a college scholarship from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, based in Lansdowne, Va. Woo plans to continue her education this fall. She has been accepted at Simmons College, Boston University and the University of Massachusetts Boston and is on the wait-list at Harvard.
“It’s been quite a journey,” said Woo. “I’m so proud of my daughter, Amarah, who is four, and I’m proud that we made this journey together, from domestic violence to this new life.”
Woo came to BHCC in 2005 with support from OneFamilyInc., a Boston foundation which helps families such as Kim’s go to school full time. Paul Fireman, founder of Reebok, and his family founded OneFamily after discovering that mothers and children were the fastest-growing segment of the homeless, according to Toni Wiley, OneFamily executive director.
“Kim is the most focused and articulate person I have ever met,” said Wiley. “Kim can take a complex issue and speak passionately and factually and you just have to stop and listen. She makes people want to get involved. Kim received a standing ovation from 125 people the first time she spoke at one of our programs.”
The Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship, with grants of up to $30,000 per year, was established to help community college students of exceptional promise and demonstrated financial need transfer to four-year colleges and universities, said Matthew Quinn, the Foundation executive director.
Woo said she arrived at BHCC unsure of herself, until she met Lloyd Sheldon Johnson, Professor of Behavioral Science. “He has the ability to reach down to people at a basic level and pull out something greater than they could acknowledge,” Woo said. “He was very demanding, but he made me believe that I was smart and strong and totally able to do this.”
Woo plans to go on to law school to work on laws, policies, and programs to eliminate homelessness and domestic violence. She is now on a statewide advisory board helping social service agencies improve service delivery, starting with daycare vouchers for single parents.
Bunker Hill Community College is the largest community college in Massachusetts. The College enrolls more than 8,500 students on two campuses and at five satellite locations each semester. More than 1,700 students take classes online. BHCC is one of the most diverse institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth. Six in ten students are people of color and more than half of BHCC’s students are women. The College also enrolls more than 600 international students who come from more than 95 countries and speak more than 75 different languages.
Normal | Large
If you have a question related to this department, please feel free to contact us.
