By Sara Versluis
Reporter

When Sade Greene and Don Cooper met as freshmen at Purchase College four years ago, Cooper said that all his new friend talked about was running for President of the United States.

You never know.

Greene, a 22-year-old Highbridge resident, recently received a 2008 SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence, which recognizes students for their academic achievement and extra-curricular accomplishments. Greene was one of four students on her campus in Westchester County to receive the award; 275 college students from SUNY campuses throughout the state were honored at a ceremony in April.

Greene said she was shocked to receive the award. “I never really got awards in elementary or high school,” she said. “I was honored, because somebody saw my potential and my hard work.”

Greene, a 2008 graduate who majored in political science, is an accomplished young woman. She maintained a 3.55 GPA, and was so active during college that her resume fills two and a half pages. During her time at Purchase, Greene served as a peer advisor, a student ambassador, a club president, and a student government senator. She also worked as a Community Outreach Coordinator for former Governor Eliot Spitzer’s election campaign and participated in a Camp David Peace Accord reenactment. Last summer she interned with American Express, where she now works in the General Counsel’s Office while she waits to hear from law schools. Her top choice is Harvard.

But things didn’t always seem so hopeful. Her mother, Juliet Irick, remembers putting her foot down after her daughter failed her first high school marking period. “I told her,‘This is your life,’” said Irick. “Failing classes isn’t hurting me—it’s hurting you.’”

But that was nothing compared to what happened when Greene was 16: Her family, including her and her two younger brothers James and Mano—now 20 and 19 respectively- became homeless. Irick and her children remained homeless for five years. “We didn’t have any help,” said Greene. Her mother applied for housing subsidies repeatedly, but it wasn’t until last fall that they obtained a government subsidy. “It took five long years of basically every door closing in our faces,” said Greene.

It was during the time she and her family were living in a shelter, Greene said, that she sized up the poverty and homelessness confronting and surrounding her and realized she could make a difference—beginning with her own life. She pulled up her grades and started talking about going to college. “She went from that first marking period to everyone at school knowing her name,” said Irick.

At Purchase, Greene is a familiar face. She ran for student government president twice, and wasn’t afraid to go knocking on people’s doors during her campaign—even though, according to her friend Don Cooper, she can be reserved at times. “She’s always been really quiet,” said Cooper. “But when she has an opinion about something, you know she’s in the room.”

Her professors note her motivation and genuine willingness to learn. “She’s a very provocative thinker,” said her advisor Connie Lobur. “She’s curious and she still has that wide-eyed openness to learning new things.”

College was a transformative time for Greene. She says she loved student life: hanging out in dorms, meeting new people. And studying. She spent a semester abroad in Valencia, Spain, where she lived with a host family and studied Spanish cinema and culture and European finance. Prior to her time in Spain, Greene had taken a beginning Spanish course, and she worked hard to communicate with the people of Spain in their native language.

As a political science major, Greene engaged thoroughly with her subjects, examining socioeconomics, anthropology, and politics. She rattles off the names and theories of famous philosophers who influenced her education—Aristotle, Plato, Cicero, Nietzsche. “He’s a little crazy,” she said of the latter.

Beyond law school, Greene has big plans for the future. She is a College Success mentor at the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ)—a youth empowerment organization and she wants to bring similar services to the Bronx. “Sade’s always been interested in getting people engaged in the community,” said Mary Hielbert, who worked with Greene in the HCZ’s College Success Office.

Greene is emphatic about her goals. “I want to do something that serves my community—and I want something that works,” said Greene. “I want to see some results.”

Growing up in the Bronx, Greene says she saw many of her friends and classmates drop out of school; some became teen parents or ended up in prison. “It was influential in my life because I saw a lot of those negatives and I wanted to do better,” said Greene. She witnessed a lack of resources, specifically in the schools, and wants to work to provide more funding and opportunity for youth. “How do you expect these children to pass their tests when you’re not giving them the same tools?” she said.

Greene wants others to have the opportunities that she had—specifically, access to higher education. “If you don’t have that diploma, no one’s going to look at you,” she said. “The knowledge you get is something that no one can take away from you.”

Greene gratefully acknowledges the help and encouragement she received from her family, friends and mentors. Without them, she says, she knows that she would not be a college graduate, working downtown, with hopes of law school.

“I’m not diminishing my own accomplishments,” Greene said. “But if it wasn’t for this program, or this opportunity, I wouldn’t be here.”

She says that while her story is a story of hope, it was not merely a matter of tugging on her bootstraps. “The American creed is a blessing and a curse,” said Greene. “I’m like, dude, I didn’t do it by myself. It’s a little more complicated than that.”

The first people Greene credits for her success is her family, and specifically her mom, who dropped out of high school after becoming a single teenage mom. Irick, who later got her G.E.D., wanted her children to know that living in the projects, on welfare, was not their only choice. She told them that she expected each of them to graduate from high school.

After a long period of homelessness, Greene’s family moved into their apartment last October. Today, three high school diplomas, one for each child, hang in the entranceway. “I told them those were my diplomas,” said Irick.

This is true, says Greene. But when she crosses the platform at Purchase’s commencement on May 16, wearing her Chancellor’s Award medallion, she plans to keep her college diploma. “If I have kids in the future, I might share my law degree with them,” said Greene. “But this one is mine.”