Essex Junction, VT,
March 24, 2010—A working mother and teacher earning her online doctorate degree in education is the winner of a $1,000 GetEducated.com/Core4Women distance learning scholarship.
Danielle E. Williams, 32, is the first winner of the GetEducated/Core4Women scholarship program.
GetEducated.com is a consumer website that ranks and reviews online degrees. Core4Women is a social networking site aimed at helping women improve their lives through online education.
GetEducated has teamed with Core4Women to fund scholarships for eligible members.
"GetEducated has been phenomenal in helping us reach out to women who need to be involved in online learning," says Gail Weatherly, distance education coordinator at Stephen F. Austin State University in Texas, who founded Core4Women in 2009. The group has about 130 members, including both mentors and students.
Williams is a mentor for Core4Women. She also is a community college liaison at Norfolk State University in Norfolk, VA; an adjunct professor at Tidewater Community College's Norfolk campus; and a mother of two children under age two.
She is studying for her online PhD in education, with a specialty in organizational leadership and community college leadership, through a distance program offered by Nova Southeastern University, based in Florida.
Online education, says Williams, "has allowed me to be a wife and mom in Virginia and a student in Florida."
Before enrolling at Nova, Williams had never taken an online course. But she learned how to use the technology during a visit to Nova's Florida campus, which she says "helped immensely."
Williams says her passion is her part-time job teaching College Success Skills to nontraditional community college students.
"I have had all convicted felons in my class," says Williams. "I tell them they can do this, there is someone who believes in them, someone who is proud to say they know them regardless of things that happened to them in the past."
Teaching the course, she says, has "changed my life and my perspective about education—how valuable it really is."
Williams has a bachelors degree in English/mass communications from Virginia State University and a masters degree in journalism from Norfolk State University. When she earns her doctorate degree, she hopes to work at a community college, perhaps as dean of student services.
This type of job, she says, will allow her to "connect with students on a regular basis. If I'm the dean, I can assign myself a course to teach!"
GetEducated is continuing to offer scholarships to Core4Women members; visit
Core4Women.org for more information.
GetEducated also offers
Excellence in Online Education Scholarships to U.S. citizens enrolled in distance learning who maintain at least a 3.0 grade point average. Deadline for this scholarship is Oct. 15, 2010.
Further details about
Danielle Williams are available at GetEducated.com.
© 2010 GetEducated.com, Get Educated, Inc.
