When Jahmiah Guillory entered his senior year, his grade point average was 1.7. Then during an assembly at Oliver High School, he learned about the Pittsburgh Promise, a program that helps pay for college for any Pittsburgh Public School student graduating with a 2.25 average.

“At that time it was just mathematically possible for me to do that,” he told the audience at the Nov. 12 Graduate Pittsburgh Summit on reducing dropouts at the YWCA. “But I would have had to get 4.0s, four quarters in a row—well, I did. Now I’m at Penn State studying petroleum and gas engineering. I expect I’ll have about a 3.6 for my first semester grade.”

SALUTING SUCCESS— Pittsburgh Promise Executive Director Saleem Ghubril congratulates Jahmiah Guillory, now at Penn State, for achieving two consecutive 4.0 GPA semesters in his senior year to qualify for the Promise scholarship.

During his keynote speech, Pittsburgh Promise Executive Director Saleem Ghubril asked Guillory to address the audience because he exemplifies what the Promise hopes to achieve. Guillory, who grew up with seven siblings and a single mother in Northview Heights, is now the first in his family to attend college.

This year’s YWCA Greater Pittsburgh Racial Justice Awards marked the 140th anniversary of the local branch. In honor of the anniversary, CEO Magdeline Jensen took the opportunity to look back on how the YWCA has handled issues of race over the past 140 years.

“In short, for 140 years the women of the YWCA in Pittsburgh have been trying to do the ‘right thing’ for racial justice,” Jensen said. “We have not always exactly agreed as to what the right thing is, and we have not always proceeded in the right way—but we have had some success along this journey, and we keep working at it.”

HONOREES—From left: Laurence Glasco, three members of the Nueve Lunas organization, George Miles, Grace Robinson, Father Regis Ryan, and Lisa Thorpe-Vaughn.

In an effort to reduce dropout rates in the Pittsburgh Public School District, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl convened leaders from several city partnerships for an all-day summit. Along with Superintendent Mark Roosevelt and Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board President Mary Richter, the mayor signed “Pittsburgh’s Multiple Education Pathways Blueprint,” a document proposing several recommendations to ensure students graduate and prepare them for post-secondary education training or employment.

MULTI-SECTOR—From left: Panelists Rev. Monica Hawkins; Derrick Lopes; Mary Frances Archey, vice president for learning and student development for the Community College of Allegheny County; J. Mike Schweder, president of AT&T Mid Atlantic; and Kimberly Booth with discussion moderator Ed Gainey, coordinator of economic development for the mayor’s office.

The blueprint signed at the Graduate Pittsburgh Summit Nov. 12 at the YWCA of Greater Pittsburgh Downtown facility, was only the beginning of a series of activities to address the dropout rate. While Ravenstahl and other sponsors pledged to move forward with the plan, others spent the rest of the day in a series of breakout sessions and panel discussions.