Contact: Ann Hatch
214-378-1819;
ahatch@dcccd.edu
For immediate release — Sept. 19, 2016
(DALLAS) — The fall semester started only a few weeks ago, but two Dallas County Community College District students started their first days on campus at Southern Methodist University as SMU 2016 Erin Tierney Kramp Honors Transfer Scholars. Keaton (Shae) Johnston and Ojaswee Giri received full-tuition scholarships to attend SMU for up to five terms.
Keaton (Shae) Johnston
Johnston previously attended Brookhaven and Eastfield colleges, and Ojaswee graduated from North Lake College; both transferred to SMU with a 4.0 grade point average.
The Kramp transfer scholarship was first offered in 2010 to recipients of DCCCD’s Erin Tierney Kramp Encouragement Scholarship. Seven SMU Kramp Transfer Honors Scholarship recipients have been awarded the honor: Michael Dylan Lewis, 2010; Amanda Collins, 2011; Shradha Singh, 2012; Stephani Kobe-Ange; Ibrahim Kamara, 2016; and both Johnston and Ojaswee in 2016. Recipients must be Erin Tierney Kramp Encouragement Scholarship recipients; must complete at least 50 transferable credit hours; and must earn a minimum 3.5 transferable GPA.
Johnston and Ojaswee have courage. They have persevered and survived challenges that likely would have overwhelmed others. But they didn’t give up — and that perseverance and courage displayed in the face of adversity are traits exhibited by the person for whom the award is named at both institutions. Erin Tierney Kramp, who fought breast cancer from 1994 to 1998, created a videotaped legacy on “life lessons” for her young daughter that would convey Kramp’s views and advice to Peyton as the young girl grew up, following her mother’s death.
Erin touched many lives and inspired countless strangers when she co-authored “Living With the End in Mind” (written with her husband and a family friend) and through appearances on programs like “20/20” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Winfrey featured the Kramp story/segment as one of her “most memorable guests” during a May 2011 farewell show as the program reached its historic end. Erin’s story lives on through the Kramp Foundation, the DCCCD scholarship program, the SMU scholarship program and the lives of all of its recipients.
Michael Brown, president of the Erin Tierney Kramp Foundation, said, “We are extremely honored and grateful for the opportunity to partner with such a prestigious educational institution as SMU. Further, we are thrilled to be able to expand the educational opportunities available to our recipients who have demonstrated ‘courage and perseverance in the face of adversity’ in addition to their outstanding academic and leadership qualities.”
Brown added, “We are confident that the outstanding individuals selected to receive these transfer scholarships will make excellent additions to the SMU student body.”
Ojaswee Giri
Johnston, who survived poverty, homelessness and abuse through education, majored in biology at Eastfield. “My story begins with an end,” he said when he was a student in the DCCCD system. That end was the end of his family when his father disappeared and eventually landed in jail as an addict afflicted by depression. It also was the end of a place to call home when his mother lost her job and the family became homeless, drifting from relative to relative, looking for a place to stay. “We changed homes as regularly as the season,” he recalled, “and I began to feel as though my destiny in life was to fail, just as my parents (had failed),” he said.
When Johnston started high school, however, his life and his outlook changed. He said, “As I matured, an epiphany came upon me. I realized that if I did not alter my views on life, I would become victim to a self-fulling prophecy, so I began to study, to apply myself and to move past my own hardships.”
The high school salutatorian built on that success at Eastfield, earning a 4.0 GPA, tutoring other students and working at the Eastfield Link Learning Center. He also was inducted in the academic honorary for two-year colleges, Phi Theta Kappa. A degree from SMU is the next step in his journey to attend medical school and become an anesthesiologist in either a hospital or private clinic.
Giri survived almost certain death in Nepal, but she continues to be excited about building her life in the U.S. She majored in accounting at North Lake College. In Nepal, baby girls bring misfortune and shame; many are killed by their family members because they are considered a burden. Ojaswee escaped that fate when her mother fought for her daughter’s life, even after she was beaten, received death threats and eventually was kicked out of the house by her husband — all when Ojaswee was only five months old.
For some time, the little girl found refuge in school, a place she called her “first home” during those early years. “Some people made fun of me, while others sympathized with me because I was abandoned by my own family,” she recalled. Eventually Ojaswee and her mother were able to leave the country and immigrate to the United States, where they faced challenges fitting into American society. She learned a new language, adopted a new culture, went to college, and became involved in Phi Theta Kappa and North Lake’s Student Government Association as both a member and an officer, among a number of other activities.
Giri, who plans to become a certified public accountant and a social entrepreneur, believes in serving people. She plans to return to Nepal and “start an organization in my home country to encourage girls and women to go to school, to become independent and strong, and to show society that a woman is not a burden.” And education is the key.
For more information, contact Ann Hatch in the DCCCD office of public and governmental affairs at 214-378-1819 or
ahatch@dcccd.edu; or Jen Lasagna, director of transfer admission at SMU, at either 214-768-2058 or at
jlasagna@smu.edu.
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