The Ann Tisch Inspire Award, named for our founder, is an annual award given to an outstanding YWLN affiliate school leader, teacher, or support staff who embodies Ann’s vision, passion, intelligence, innovation, and perseverance. Meet this year’s Ann Tisch Inspire Award–Jahleese Hadley! Jahleese is the director of college counseling at the Girls’ Leadership School of Wilmington (GLOW) and she truly has come full circle at SL Network.
Jahleese enrolled at TYWLS East Harlem as a seventh-grade student and graduated in 2006.
Following high school, Jahleese attended Smith College where she took advantage of Smith’s open curriculum and ultimately settled on a major in African American Studies with a minor in German Studies–which led to an opportunity to learn, work, and live in Hamburg, Germany for a year.
After graduating from college, Jahleese came “back home” to SL Network when she joined the team as a program associate supporting all Girls’ Education programming at the four TYWLS at the time and played a critical role in the first-year recruitment cycle for our fifth TYWLS location in the Bronx which was established in 2012.
She also worked with the first YWLN affiliate school council to bring together leaders in our growing affiliate school network and coordinated the inaugural YWLN affiliate school convening in Baltimore in 2015. After working with SL Network for nearly five years, Jahleese transitioned to a new role at GLOW and continues to make a huge impact for her students and for our YWLN affiliate school network!
We caught up with Jahleese to find out how TYWLS has shaped her – and what continues to drive her every day. Here’s what she had to say:
In what ways did attending TYWLS prepare you for college and your career?
TYWLS prepared me for college because being a student there taught me how to harness the power of my voice, the freedom that comes with being my authentic self and to feel comfortable taking risks knowing that my intelligence and my chosen community would always serve as a safety net. Attending college in a city worlds away from my hometown of Harlem and with a student population vastly different from my peers at TYWLS, knowing who I was, how to build a support network and that I belonged anywhere I wanted to be meant that I would embrace challenges and use them to make me better instead of running away from them. That mindset has continued to serve me in my career and it’s what I try to foster in my current students.
What was your relationship like with your director of college counseling (DCC) at TYWLS?
Chris Farmer is family; specifically, Chris is like a first cousin. I say that because Chris never missed an opportunity to tease us and humble us when our heads got too big but he was quietly one of our biggest champions. From letting us stay late at school until we got all our applications in, to chaperoning countless trips to bowling with the Special Olympics so we could build up our community service hours. I’ll never forget the role Chris played in my life specifically, helping to babysit my little brother at school on nights when my mother worked her second job so that I could continue to participate in Step Up, drama, or other extracurricular activities. He still asks about my brother to this day anytime we catch up and is shocked when I tell him that he is in his 20s now.
What influenced your career path into college counseling/advisement?
I started my academic career as an aspiring mechanical engineer. Calculus II sank that ship but during the winter break of my second year at Smith, I participated in the Urban Education Initiative internship program and because of my connection to TYWLS I was placed there to serve as a teaching assistant. At the end of that experience, I was driven to explore what made TYWLS and programs like it so special.
I thought back to my initial experiences at Smith. Through conversations with friends, who had also come from public schools, I realized that the whole girl high school experience I thought was the norm, was not. It’s one thing to experience TYWLS as a student but experiencing it as a professional and gaining insight into the intentionality behind every facet of the student experience was world changing for me. I needed to understand it, dissect it, make it better if I could. After my experience as a teaching assistant at TYWLS, I once again donned my engineer’s hat. But now, instead of wanting to build machines, I wanted to understand the challenges facing students and build programming to bolster their success. I’ve been doing that in one way or another ever since.
What keeps you inspired and motivated in your work?
I am motivated everyday to serve my students because I benefited from the service of others. I am excited each year that I get to pass that legacy on.
What does winning the Ann Tisch Inspire award mean to you?
It is an honor to receive this award because Ann is such an inspiring woman to many – who wouldn’t want to be in a class with her? Personally, I have had the opportunity to know Ann and have her as a mentor since seventh grade. I know that she wants the best for me, but what I admire about Ann is that she truly wants the best for all students that SL Network serves regardless of how well she knows them. She was driven to build an organization with the mission to provide a quality education and options beyond high school for students simply because they deserve nothing less. I am passionate about doing the same work and this award is affirmation that I am carrying the torch lit by Ann Tisch 25 years ago!
About YWLN
The Young Women’s Leadership Network is a national network of single-gender public schools providing an excellent whole girl model education that challenges the educational and gender inequities that persist in our country. Since 2001, our YWLN footprint has grown to include affiliate schools in California, Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, and our partner network – the Young Women’s Preparatory Network (YWPN) – in Texas. Learn more about how we support our YWLN affiliate schools.
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