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Daniel De Robles
Daniel was a Community Scholar the first three years of the program (1998-2000) and worked on Healthcare Education; Bank Lending; and WIC funding.
He graduated from Parkland High School, class of 1999 and also from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX, class of 2003. He received a BS in Engineering Science with a Math minor.
Daniel served in the Navy and was responsible for construction projects at the Navy and Marine Corps Reserve Stations across Texas, including El Paso. He has transitioned out of the Navy and is the Project Engineer at Fort Sam Houston, overseeing several construction projects totaling $40 million. He lives with his wife Lindsay in San Antonio.
Jose Miguel Landeros
As a first year scholar in 2003, Jose researched public education ("Equitable Funding In Public Education: Where Has Texas Been and Where is it Headed?"), and as a second year scholar in 2004, he researched higher education ("Closing The Gaps: The Role of Community Colleges in Higher Education").
Jose has supervised five groups over the past three summers. He has overseen reports such as the "The Sun City Meltdown: Mass Transit in the El Paso Area," "Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority: The Right Road for El Paso?" and most recently, "Think Clean, Go Green: An Inventory of El Paso's Environmental Issues."
Jose currently attends Texas A&M University where he is studying Political Science and English. He will graduate May of 2009, and plans on continuing his education with a Law or Master's Degree.
Kwadwo Achampong
Kwadwo Achampong was born at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, Illinois on April 18th, 1983 to Christos and Theresa, immigrant parents from Ghana, West Africa. Kwadwo’s work ethic comes from his father who worked three jobs and often went with little or no sleep to support his family while Kwadwo’s mother battled breast cancer during and after Kwadwo’s birth. Theresa passed away when Kwadwo was only four years old, leaving Christos alone to raise three children and eventually leading to the adoption of Kwadwo and one sister by a physician and his wife who took them to live in Shawano, Wisconsin, where he was exposed to the idea of medicine as well life outside the city and the great outdoors.
After several years, Kwadwo and his sister rejoined their father in Phoenix, Arizona where they lived for the next couple of years before moving to Nashville, Tennessee and then El Paso, Texas, where he attended the Maxine Silva Health Magnet High School, renewing his interest in healthcare. At Silva, Kwadwo met Fernanda Payan who introduced him to the Community Scholars program. He worked as a scholar intern in 2000 and 2001, graduated from Silva with Honors and in the top 10% of his class.
In the fall of 2001, Kwadwo left El Paso to attend Northwestern University in Chicago where he majored in Psychology and African American Studies, while staying on the pre-medical track, working as a Nurses Aid in the University Health Clinic and as a research aid on a longitudinal study with Northwestern and UCLA studying the effects of anxiety on adolescents. During his time at Northwestern, Kwadwo was instrumental in helping expose and quell tensions between police and minority students.
In 2005, Kwadwo graduated from Northwestern University and returned to El Paso and became a Community Scholars Supervisor in 2006.
Kwadwo gave back to his community by volunteering a year of his time and up to 20 hours weekly as a service volunteer for the Texas Cooperative Extension’s Americorps Program.
In 2007 Kwadwo was hired as the Community Scholars Program Coordinator, accepted a part-time position as a teaching assistant for the Biology Department at the University of Texas at El Paso, and was nominated and served as an Empowerment Zone Advisory Board Member to City Council.
In the fall of 2008 Kwadwo begins a new journey when he starts medical school at the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa, whom awarded him the Dean's Scholar Scholarship in the amount of $16,000 annually for four years. He intends to one day practice internal medicine or urology and hopes to return to his beloved El Paso.
Gilbert Rodriguez
Gilbert graduated from Anthony High School in 2007 at the top of his class. His junior year of high school, Gilbert participated in the program, researching the effects and feasability of a living wage in El Paso. He is currently attending Baylor Universtiy where he is studying both Electrical and Computer Engineering. In 2008, he returned to the program as a supervisor, contributing to the "Conducting Success in the Southwest: Bring Energy to the El Paso Region" report.
Upon his graduation, Gilbert has plans to pursue a Master's Degree, and eventually bring his skills and knowledge back to El Paso.
Archive:
The goal of Community Scholars is to create ethical regional leadership; at the same time, it is our mission to provide the community with information on relevant and timely issues. Supporting this program means supporting our future and important community discussions on issues that impact El Paso.
Since 1998, Community Scholars interns have produced over 80 reports related to Education (Higher and Public), Workforce Development, Healthcare, Infrastructure, Access to Capital and Water.
