At the School of Journalism and Graphic Communication we love to see our former students continuing their education and receiving advanced degrees. Recently, Sharon Renee Mitchell was awarded a doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Oregon.
She developed I am M.O.R.E., Making Ourselves Resilient Everyday. This is a youth development program used for her doctoral candidacy at the University of Oregon. She developed the theory of change known as Empowered Resilience.
Mitchell graduated from FAMU with a bachelor’s of Science in Journalism in 1985 and later obtained her MBA from George Fox University in 2001. Mitchell worked for years for the Portland Oregonian, a daily newspaper based in Portland as a Metro Columnist and was a Nominee for Pulitzer Prizes in 2005 and 2008. She was also named No. 1 newspaper columnist in five western states by the Society of Professional Journalists regional chapter.
After leaving the Oregonian in 2008 she eventually found herself as a journalism teacher at Roosevelt High School in Portland Oregon. She has also taught journalism from K-12 and college, including her four years teaching journalism, storytelling, mass communications at Roosevelt High School in Portland, Oregon. She even won the award of Community Freedom Fighter at Roosevelt for social justice work in 2014. Mitchell also founded her own business in 2008 known as Renee Mitchell Speaks, LLC where she is a facilitator for grant writing, performance, and journalism workshops.
From her website she is described as a “Creative Revolutionist” and is widely known for her community activism.
Mitchell intends to, “create a national example of how to empower and build hope and resiliency in youth of color with profound love, culturally relevant social-emotional skill building, and youth voice-centered programming.”
