Jamila Cutliff of Saginaw, Mich., a senior in the College of Engineering at Cornell, has received a $1,500 Howard R. Swearer Student Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Public Service.
The award recognizes Cutliff, who is majoring in material science, bioengineering and pre-med, for founding Encourage Youth and Educate Society (EYES), a community service organization that allies disadvantaged upstate New York children with Cornell engineering majors, who teach them math and science skills. Some EYES activities have included programming a PacMan game in C+ language and running an assimilated manufacturing environment using linear algebra. Cutliff plans to use her award money to expand the program nationally and to purchase more hands-on materials, she said.
"For the first few years we tested the program on 11th- and 12th-graders at Ithaca High School to see if it would work," Cutliff said. "It did, and now we are taking up rural opportunities. The success of EYES has strengthened my resolve to empower students, and it's been an empowering experience for me as well."
She added, "Part of what motivates me is the discouragement I got from a past junior high school teacher who told me I wasn't smart enough to be in advanced math or to gain admittance to an Ivy League school. I learned from that experience how important encouragement is."
Cutliff also credits Cornell's LeaderShape Institute program for helping her refine her vision for EYES. Besides investing in Cutliff by funding her attendance to the institute's intensive six-day leadership program, Cornell has provided Cutliff with what she calls "great faculty support."
In fact, faculty members from the College of Engineering have committed to guiding volunteers in EYES and their projects. Beyond this, Cutliff has received a vote of confidence from her student peers, of whom more than 50 have volunteered their time to participate in the program.
"And I've been given office space and a part-time job at Cornell's Public Service Center," Cutliff added, speaking of the program that awarded her a Robinson-Appel Humanitarian Award last year.
Katherine Doob, director of the Public Service Center, a campus program that provides links to more than 150 volunteer agencies, praised Cutliff, saying, "One could not hope for a better Cornell ambassador. I am pleased that we at the center are fortunate to have her on our team as she brings charisma, dedication and grace to all we do."
Cutliff's other activities have included being an upstate zone chair for the National Society of Black Engineers, the president of Black Theater Production, the state president of Michigan DECA (an association of marketing students), and a volunteer for Helping One Student to Succeed (HOSTS), the Growth for Afrocentric Program (GAP) and the Boys and Girls Club in Saginaw.
Cutliff's Swearer Student Humanitarian Award was made possible by Cornell's participation in Campus Compact, a national organization of 575 college and university presidents who have committed to making service a part of higher education and who reward ideas put into action. The Swearer Award was named after Howard R. Swearer, one of the founders of Campus Compact and the 15th president of Brown University.
Cutliff received the award June 22 in South Bend, Ind., at a regional Campus Compact Presidents' Leadership Colloquium at the University of Notre Dame.
"Life," she said, quoting her favorite saying, "is not lost by dying. It's lost minute by minute, day by day in all the thousand small uncaring ways."
Cutliff is the second Cornell student to receive the Swearer Award. Neil Giacobbi '96 was selected in 1996 for forming The Partnership, a student-managed agency that acts as a conduit between Ithaca-area human service agencies and the volunteer service community at Cornell. Renamed On Site Volunteer Services, Giacobbi's organization continues to develop projects in conjunction with area agencies and recruit student volunteers to carry them out.
For information on the Swearer Award or Campus Contact, call (401) 863-1119.
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