Brooklyn native, Kendra Barber is one of eight graduate students who have been selected this year to benefit from Thomas Shortman Scholarships. The Shortman scholarship will help Kendra pursue a PhD program in sociology at the University of Maryland.

The Thomas Shortman Scholarship Fund - a joint labor-management program negotiated between the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) and contributing employers - awards students for accomplishments that extend beyond the academic realm. This year, 22 New York area high-school students will benefit from these scholarships in addition to 8 students entering graduate schools. The application process is competitive with fewer than eight percent of the applicants being selected for awards. Each undergraduate scholarship provides $4000 annually for four years at the students’ college of choice; graduate scholarships provide $8000 annually for the life of the program.

True to her Caribbean roots - Kendra’s Dad is from Belize - she was determined from a young age to improve her life and the lives of those around her. Growing up in the Bedford Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn, where the school system did not provide the needed challenges, Kendra’s parents enrolled her in A Better Chance (ABC) program. Along with six other students, she was assigned to a high school in Darien, Connecticut, and faced the challenge of fitting into a community that was economically, racially and culturally different from her own. Kendra adjusted so well that in time she orchestrated the school’s first-ever Black History Month assembly. The school still continues the tradition.

Kendra moved on to the University of North Carolina, where in her sophomore year, she took advantage of a semester abroad at the University of Ghana at Legon.

“I arrived in Ghana with dreams of tracing my roots and imbibing some of the African culture. It was a rude awakening, however, since the African students merely regarded me as another well-off American,” she lamented. The experience was not totally in vain, however, since Kendra was able to undertake research on the life and mission of Kwame Nkrumah, the father of Ghana’s independence and a leader of the Pan-African movement.

Her interest in sociology was further aroused as she worked on a research project regarding the racial achievement gap that exists in the North Carolina school system. Kendra also served as a Minority Adviser to incoming freshmen during her undergraduate years at University of North Carolina.

Kendra’s main ambition is to become a Professor in Sociology. As she reflected on the lack of motivation among the youngsters in Black communities today, she confided: “They tell themselves that the schools in their neighborhoods will always be second rate and that there will never be a good job waiting in which they could excel. Given that kind of despair, it becomes impossible to build strong communities.”

Kendra remains convinced however that each one must do his part to work hard to escape poverty by going to school, by doing a good job at work and not becoming involved in crime. Kendra has been a girl scout for the past 13 years and attends Emmanuel Baptist Church where she continues her involvement with community service.

She has two older sisters; her Dad is a building manager and member of 32BJ, and her Mom, Joan Barber, is an Elementary school teacher. Kendra looks forward to entering the University of Maryland in the fall. She has received a four-year scholarship towards tuition from the University and will also be the proud beneficiary of the grant provided under the Thomas Shortman Scholarship. After graduate school, Kendra plans to pursue her long-time aspiration of entering the teaching profession.