A Dream Deferred | HBCU Conference 2024
Breaking Barriers: CEO Sharif El-Mekki Honored with the Dr. Asa G. Hilliard Model of Excellence Award
The Dr. Asa G. Hilliard Model of Excellence Award, presented at the A Dream Deferred™ conference, acknowledges individuals or organizations that have encouraged African American students to strive for academic success.
As the chief executive officer of The Center for Black Educator Development, Sharif El-Mekki positively impacts diversifying the teacher pipeline and developing ongoing supports. The center’s Black Teacher Pipeline Fellowship provides not only academic support and coaching but also educational funding. Through the fellowship’s Black Male Educators for Social Justice, his organization helps to retain, recruit, and develop Black male teachers.
The Asa G. Hilliard Model of Excellence Award serves as a reminder of the generational impact and lasting change that El-Mekki’s work has on the community at large.
At The Center for Black Educator Development, our mission is to rebuild a national Black teacher pipeline.
Sharif El-Mekki, Founding Director and Chief Executive Officer, The Center for Black Educator Development
“Last summer, we had almost 200 Black high school and college youth—who are interested in teaching—participate in our teacher apprenticeship,” says El-Mekki on video during his pre-recorded acceptance speech, “We have raised over a million dollars for our Future Black Teachers of Excellence Fund to be able to provide students support as they matriculate through college as well as receive a stipend once they reach their fifth year of teaching.”
The Center’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) Teaching Academy course, rooted in Black pedagogy and historical frameworks, allows students to learn to teach while exploring the relationship between teaching and learning in Black communities.
High school students are not only receiving this [CTE] course. They’re also receiving clinical experience by teaching first, second, and third graders. That’s the start of a Black teacher pipeline.
Sharif El-Mekki, Founding Director and Chief Executive Officer, The Center for Black Educator Development
Sharif El-Mekki, chief executive officer of The Center for Black Educator Development, appearing on video at A Dream Deferred
Read More on Sharif El-Mekki
A child born and raised within a community of activists, Sharif El-Mekki was plotting his way to law school to seek social justice when veteran Black educator Dr. Martin Ryder convinced El-Mekki that his activism could be powerfully realized as a classroom teacher. This invitation into the teaching profession launched his 26-year career as a teacher and principal in west Philadelphia schools.
El-Mekki also served as one of the U.S. Department of Education’s inaugural Principal Ambassador Fellows and on the Philadelphia Mayor’s Commission on African American Males.
From his experiences in community activism and local, state, and federal policy, and working in schools in west Philadelphia, El-Mekki became keenly interested in the nexus between education and education policy. In 2014, El-Mekki founded The Fellowship: Black Male Educators for Social Justice, and in 2019, he launched the Center for Black Educator Development with the mission of rebuilding the national Black teacher pipeline. El-Mekki is a contributing blogger on Philly’s 7th Ward and a member of the #FreedomFridays podcast.
