For Immediate Release:  May 7, 2007
Contact:  Marsha Nishi Mullan     
610-328-8535      
http://www.swarthmore.edu/news/

Five Swarthmore Seniors Selected
as 2007 Philly Fellows

Five Swarthmore College seniors have been selected from among a competitive group of 84 talented candidates in the Philadelphia region to be 2007 Philly Fellows:  they are Windsor Jordan Jr. of Decatur, Ga.; Michael Jowza of Park Ridge, N.J.; Miriam Okine of Gaithersburg, Md.; Rebekah Rosenfeld of Rochester, N.Y.; and Danielle Toaltoan of Downingtown, Pa. Only 15 Philly Fellows from six schools were chosen this year. Philly Fellows is a year-long post-graduate program offered to top graduates of Philadelphia area colleges and universities by 15 Philadelphia non-profit partner agencies to provide opportunities to engage in the city's neighborhoods and diverse non-profit experiences.

Windsor Jordan Jr. has chosen to work this coming year with After School Activities Partnerships (ASAP) as its Chess Coordinator. ASAP coordinates neighborhoods and schools to organize fulfilling and dynamic after school programs for Philadelphia youth. Jordan will coordinate the sites, volunteers, and students of the nearly 200 chess clubs within the Philadelphia public schools. Jordan is the son of Adelaide Solomon-Jordan and Windsor L. Jordan Sr. and a 2003 graduate of Northfield Mount Hermon School in Northfield, Mass. A sociology and anthropology major with a minor in black studies, he is a recipient of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, an active member of Swarthmore African Americans Students' Society (SASS) and served as SASS's president last year. This year he was a Senior Admissions Fellow in the Admissions Office interviewing prospective students for the Class of 2011.

Michael Jowza will be a Communications Associate with Community Legal Services (CLS), a non-profit organization whose mission is to help low-income people by providing them with advice and representation in civil legal matters, advocating for their legal rights, and conducting community education about legal issues. He will also help with the development of CLS's communication plan and foreign language material. Jowza is the son of Mahvash Basseri and Mohammad Jowza and a 2003 graduate of Pascack Valley High School in Park Ridge.  He is a Spanish major with a minor in linguistics. With an avid interest in language, he is a member of the school's Spanish language literary magazine Enie and has served at Philadelphia's Nationalities Service Center as an ESL teacher. 

Miriam Okine will be a Public Education Advocate with the Education Law Center, a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all of Pennsylvania's most vulnerable students—students of color, students who are poor, students with disabilities, and English language learners—have access to a quality public education. The daughter of Constance and Laud Okine, she is a 2002 graduate of the Akosombo International School in Ghana. Okine is a political science major with minors in public policy and English literature. She has been an active volunteer with the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility's Upward Bound Program and Chester's Higher Ground College Prep Program. She is also a spoken-word artist.

Rebekah Rosenfeld will work with the Bethesda Project as a Community Life Assistant. The Bethesda Project oversees 11 homeless shelters and residences across Philadelphia, and Rosenfeld will join staff, residents, and volunteers in developing their community-based cultural, educational, and recreational programs. Rosenfeld is the daughter of Sylvia Rose and Paul Rosenfeld and a 2002 graduate of Brighton High School in Rochester. She is an English literature major with a minor in sociology and anthropology, a member of the Student Health and Wellness Committee, the Alchemy editorial board, and Swarthmore Hillel. She also serves as a Writing Associate and tutors middle school students through the Chester Mural Collective's arts education program.

Danielle Toaltoan will be a Community Outreach Associate at the Enterprise Center. Through this position, she will work with community groups in West Philadelphia in a cooperative effort to devise a comprehensive plan to redevelop ten city blocks of West Philadelphia. Entrepreneurship and supporting multicultural businesses will be at the center of this redevelopment plan. Toaltoan is the daughter of Lavinia and Jeffrey Toaltoan and a 2003 graduate of Westtown School. A political science major with a minor in public policy, she is a Resident Assistant, a Writing Associate (peer tutor), and the head and co-founder of the Common Ground Solidarity Group, which works to bring Hurricane Katrina relief activism to the campus. She also dances with the student company, Rhythm n'Motion.

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