Spotlight on Excellence
Alcorn Part Of Nationwide
Campaign To Increase The Number Of Students Pursuing Degrees
In The Sciences
Chicago Publisher Awards Full Scholarship to
Honor Student, Assisting Alcorn State University in its
Concerted Efforts to Dramatically Increase the Number of
Students Pursuing Degrees in the Sciences
When Joshlean Fair returns to
Alcorn State University for her sophomore year this fall,
she will do so with a full scholarship to pursue her
undergraduate degree in biochemistry, on her way eventually
to medical school.
The scholarship will be
awarded to Joshlean at a special dinner in Chicago on
Saturday, June 24 by N’DIGO, the Chicago area’s largest
African American weekly publication. There is a nationwide
emphasis to increase the number of college and university
students who pursue degrees in what is known as STEM
disciplines (science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics). Alcorn State University is committed to
aggressively increasing its number of students who
concentrate in these areas, and companies like N’DIGO have
generously agreed to partner with the institution in those
ongoing efforts.
While Joshlean considered
Washington University in St. Louis as well as Xavier
University in New Orleans before coming to Alcorn, the
customer service and personal attention she received from
Alcorn helped her make the important decision of where to
earn an undergraduate degree.
“Alcorn was not only an HBCU,
which I was intending on attending, they were very
gracious,” said Joshlean, who was also salutatorian of the
graduating class of 2005 at Morgan Creek High School, in her
native Chicago.
“They have a great reputation
in the sciences,” she said of Alcorn’s academic programs.
“When all else failed, Alcorn was always there and with arms
opened wide. That’s what did it for me.”
Joshlean possesses a very
impressive academic resume which includes a 3.79 grade-point
average throughout her high school career, and a 3.91
grade-point average after her first year at Alcorn. She
also scored a 26 out of a total possible of 36 points on the
ACT, the entrance examination that Alcorn uses as part of
its admissions process. Her score of 26 on the ACT was more
than five points higher than the national average composite
score for 2005 when 1.2 million students took the test.
In addition to rigorous
scientific study when she returns to Alcorn in August,
Joshlean also plans to resume her extracurricular activities
in the Alcorn State University Gospel Choir, Students in
Free Enterprise, and the Tri-Beta Biological Honor Society.
“Alcorn is a beautiful
university,” she said. “It was an easy choice.”
