Middlesex County College graduate Namema Amendi was one of 51 students across the nation to receive the 2007 Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship. This is the largest and most prestigious scholarship in the nation for students transferring from a community college to a four-year institution.

The Kenya native has a 3.981 grade point average and is transferring to Columbia University, planning to major in pre-medicine. He hopes to become a physician and work in the United States.

“This is a great honor for Namema and for the College,” said Sheema Majiduddin, chair of the College’s Jack Kent Cooke committee. “Cooke receives about 800 applications and awards 50 scholarships. It is extremely competitive, and also rewarding. The staff of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation will work with him to make sure he can spend all his time studying. They don’t want him to be worrying about tuition or expenses for the next two years.”

Lori Johnson, coordinator of the College’s Minority Access to the Professions (MAPS) program, called Mr. Amendi an outstanding student who excelled as a peer leader and tutor.

“He is the type of student an advisor dreams about,” she said.

The Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship Program was designed to help community college students with exceptional promise and demonstrated financial need make the transition to four-year colleges or universities.

“For many low-income, motivated students, community college is an essential part of their plan to eventually obtain a Bachelor’s degree,” said Dr. Matthew Quinn, the Foundation’s executive director. “Our 2007 Undergraduate Transfer Scholars share the ability and willingness to prevail over many limitations, including pressing financial need. We’re pleased to help them realize the next step in their educational development.”

Each year, the Foundation selects approximately 50 high-achieving, low-income students from community or two-year colleges for scholarships that provide funding for tuition, room and board, fees, and books. As the largest scholarship offered in the U.S. to community college transfer students, the awards can total up to $30,000 per year for up to three years.

Aside from swimming every day and working in the MAPS program, Mr. Amendi spent most of his time studying.

“I got an excellent education at Middlesex – I know I am very well prepared to attend Columbia,” he said.

Medical school was not always on Mr. Amendi’s horizon. “I can trace my decision to become a doctor to my early years of high school (in Kenya),” Mr. Amendi said in his application to Columbia. “I had developed a passion for fighting against the social injustice that stalked the poor people of my locality. I remember peasant farmers being evicted from forests, street children being violently swept off city streets, small scale businessmen being exposed to unfair competition from big multinationals . . . it all seemed overwhelming. Being a lawyer and activist seemed like the way to go. The turning point came when in fulfilling my community service requirements, I volunteered for St. John’s Ambulance, an international organization that trains individuals in disaster response and community service in hospitals. It was through this program that I was able to immerse myself into a different world of suffering and struggle that existed in my community. A world of diseases: AIDS, malaria, cancer, typhoid, tuberculosis. The pain was immense and far more than the desire to settle scores or acquire anything material, most of those suffering just needed the strength to battle the diseases that ate them from within. For two years, I cared for those affected, and in my own small way provided a battlefront against these diseases. Needless to say, from then on I knew where I was headed. I was not going to spend my life fighting against men, but rather fighting against the diseases that threatened the existence of those very men.

”While at Middlesex, Mr. Amendi was inducted into Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor society for two-year colleges, and later became vice president. He was also in charge of its tutoring program.

Professor Steven P. Rowley, who taught Mr. Amendi’s General Chemistry II class in the spring of 2006, said the student was extremely intelligent and focused.

“I was most impressed with his leadership skills,” Dr. Rowley said. “In the lab portion of the class, the other students looked to Namema for guidance and help. The class did excellent work and one of the reasons was that Namema set a high standard for the other students. It was clear that he understood laboratory procedures and could explain them. Namema consistently took time to help other students to understand things in a given lab and he did so in a way that encouraged the other students to think about what they were doing on their own. He is a great student; I have no doubt he will be successful at Columbia and beyond.”