She’s one of the 3%. Sade Burrell now wants to raise that 3%.
“It’s been one journey that I’m really excited to conclude,” Burrell said before presenting her doctoral dissertation at UC San Diego. “This is just the beginning of my professional journey.”
Burrell, an Associate Professor at San Diego Mesa College, was looking forward to adding Ph.D. to her title.
“I’m going to be a doctor. Dr. Sade Burrell. In about two hours, I’ll be Dr. Sade Burrell,” she smiled.
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Dr. Burrell said the achievement is magnified by the fact that only 3% of children who go through the foster care system graduate with a bachelor’s degree.
“It’s even less for a master's. So, can you imagine what it is for a doctorate?” she said.
The Spring Valley mother of two defended her doctoral dissertation before faculty, mentors, family and friends Monday afternoon. The crowd included her two children.
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“For them to see their mother graduate and do something like this, I can’t really explain it,” Burrell sighed.
Her dissertation examined how and why the 3% of children who lived through the foster system succeeded in college.
“It’s close to my heart because I’m studying individuals who impacted me,” Burrell said, adding that she overcame a learning disability as a child, an arrest for assault and battery as a teen and multiple homes with family and foster care.
“My story is always challenging to tell because there are periods of my life when I was living with different family members,” she explained. “I didn’t know that I was in foster care. They hardened my heart a little. It changed who I was as a person.”
Burrell said she still needed guidance. Her dissertation examined the people who helped her graduate from high school, attend community college, earn her bachelor’s at San Diego State, master’s at USC and ultimately her Ph.D. at UC San Diego.
“I’m an example of what happens when people come together and truly begin to support students who experience foster care,” she said. “We can begin to make this a norm for students who experience foster care.”
Burrell said her ultimate goal is to become a university president and impact change for children of foster youth programs from a different direction.
