La Jerne Terry Cornish\u2014who in 1983 and 1994 earned bachelor\u2019s and master\u2019s degrees, respectively, from Goucher and now has a son attending Goucher (Class of 2018)\u2014knows the potentially transformative power of a Goucher education. She also knows firsthand that good academic counseling can reorient a young person\u2019s outlook and aspirations.<\/p>\n
She initially didn\u2019t intend to attend college at all. During Cornish\u2019s senior year at Baltimore\u2019s Western High School, her mother fell gravely ill. Rather than\u00a0go to college, Cornish planned to care for her. When a teacher at Western, Goucher alumna Deanna Miller \u201961, heard about these plans, she arranged\u00a0an interview for Cornish with Goucher\u2019s Admissions Office. Cornish was awarded a scholarship.<\/p>\n
Later, when her mother died during her second semester at Goucher, Cornish struggled to cope. She also felt alone: When she graduated, she was one of only nine students of color in her class, and there were no faculty or staff members of color. \u201cThe only people who did look like me cooked the food, cleaned the rooms, and cut the grass, but these people were very supportive of me and other students of color.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of Cornish\u2019s professional life has been dedicated to ensuring students have\u00a0the support they need for success. After college, she accepted a job in Baltimore City\u2019s public schools, taught for nine years as a middle school English teacher, and worked as a project coordinator for at-risk students. She also piloted the Maryland\u2019s Tomorrow Program, an initiative that for years has offered at-risk eighth-graders paid summer internships as a way of encouraging them to stay in school. In 1996, she became an assistant principal at Canton Middle School.<\/p>\n
Two years later, \u201cGoucher called,\u201d Cornish says, smiling. At the time, the college was having trouble attracting professors of color\u2014and she was offered a teaching position. She knew that if she accepted the position, she\u2019d be the only full-time, female, African American professor. She hesitated.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought about how hard it was going to college when there was no one in the classroom who looked like me,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd then I knew I had to return to Goucher; I wanted to be for others, that which was not here for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
She took the job. While teaching full time, she also earned her doctorate in language literacy and culture from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.<\/p>\n
Until last year, Cornish taught undergraduate and graduate education classes; this year she is not teaching so she can spend more time with students\u00a0in her role as associate provost for undergraduate studies. And since\u00a02004, she has led an Intensive Course Abroad in which Goucher students\u00a0spend three weeks during the summer\u00a0in Grahamstown, South Africa, teaching English and reading skills to middle schoolers. She also became Goucher\u2019s first African American alumna to be awarded tenure and first African American to serve as both chair of the faculty and associate provost for undergraduate studies.<\/p>\n
In Cornish\u2019s office hangs a small painting she brought home from South Africa. It shows neat rows of township homes painted in bright colors, linked by a road made of real dirt and gravel.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time I look at it, I am reminded of my personal privilege,\u201d she says. \u201cI watch my son attending college, and I see Goucher doing for him what it did for me, and that is wonderful. And I also look around and see Goucher doing the same thing for each of our students. I see such potential in them, and I delight in playing a role in helping them walk in their gifts and their power. Really, there is no limit to what they can do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
La Jerne Terry Cornish knows the potentially transformative power of a Goucher education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":312,"featured_media":887,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[54973,56332],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[87540],"class_list":["post-856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-spotlight","category-women-of-goucher"],"yoast_head":"\n