Gail-Lenora Staton of the Office of Minority Education and Assistant Dean Roy Charles of the Graduate Students Office were honored as MIT winners of the 2003 Black Achiever Award by the Boston YMCA.
The Black Achievers program recognizes African-Americans in the Boston area as well as regions served by 75 other YMCAs around the country. Recipients are nominated for their professional accomplishments and their volunteer community service with young people. As part of the program, they agree to commit at least 40 hours with youths in the Black Achievers Community Service Program.
Staton, senior administrative officer of the Office of Minority Education (OME), came to MIT as a secretarial temp in 1984 and never left. She earned a bachelor's degree from the Harvard University Extension School in 1990 and a master's degree in religious studies from the Andover-Newton Theological School in 1996. Prior to joining the OME in 1990, she was administrative assistant to the director for MIT Quality Education Projects. She served on the Stewart Compton Awards Committee from 1997-98 and received the MIT Black Women's Alliance administrator award in 1998 "for support and guidance to the community of black women students at MIT."
"Gail-Lenora constantly strives to give administrators and students a sharply defined sense of how they can make a meaningful impact on their society by positively contributing to it," assistant dean Leo Osgood Jr., director of the OME, wrote in his nominating letter.
Charles, who earned a B.S. in business administration from Roger Williams College in 1991 and an M.Ed. from Cambridge College in 1997, has been assistant dean for graduate students since 1997. He was featured in a 1998 Ebony Magazine article titled "30 Leaders--30 and Under."
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on February 12, 2003.
