Fox EMBA grad earns Champion of Change title from the White House

When Patience Lehrman immigrated from a village in Cameroon, West Africa, to a small town in Washington state, she never imagined she would one day sit at a White House roundtable advising top immigration policymakers. But this May, that is exactly what Lehrman, a recent Fox School of Business Executive MBA graduate and national director of Temple’s Project SHINE (Students Helping in the Naturalization of Elders), found herself doing.

Competing against 450 applicants, Project SHINE was selected by the Migration Policy Institute, an independent, nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. as one of four 2011 E Pluribus Unum Prize recipients for exceptional immigrant integration initiatives. Lehrman accepted a $50,000 award on behalf of Project SHINE and was invited to join top government officials at an immigration policy roundtable discussion. After the event, Lehrman was named a White House Champion of Change.

Just a week after President Obama gave a major speech on immigration in El Paso, Texas, Lehrman sat with fellow Champions of Change and four government officials to discuss what must be done on both government and grassroots levels “to fix our broken immigration system.”

“Often people look to the federal government for a solution,” Lehrman said. “I’m of the school of thought that says, ‘No way. The solution is right here – right here with you and I, right here in the community where we deal with these issues every day.’”

For Lehrman, Project SHINE is part of the solution. SHINE, a nonprofit born at Temple’s Intergenerational Center, operates in 19 campuses in nine states: California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas. Students provide important English, civics and literacy knowledge to an immigrant population that is often overlooked by others. At the same time, they are exposed to the rich cultures and experiences of older immigrants.

Since SHINE’s inception in 1985, it has trained nearly 10,000 college students and assisted more than 40,000 immigrants.

Lehrman says Fox’s EMBA program has been essential to her work at Project SHINE and the success that earned it the E Pluribus Unum Prize and Champion of Change title. The program helped her re-position the SHINE brand and apply value to her work in the nonprofit sector.

Lehrman sees the value of immigration initiatives like Project SHINE as endless.

“I remind elected officials, business and community leaders that immigrants are your best asset,” said Lehrman, who also earned her master’s degrees in education and organizational development at Temple.

“For America to be positioned to win the future – economically, politically, socially – we have to wake up and recognize that what makes America the greatest country is our ability to integrate diversity.”

As a Champion of Change, Lehrman has taken the lead to convene a roundtable discussion in partnership with the City Council of Philadelphia in response to Obama’s call to action to address the immigration system.

Ultimately she wants to help remove the “veil of radioactivity” that often surrounds immigrants and to help the country realize that, “We don’t have a single human being to waste.”

– Christine Fisher