Small Seed Grows to Great Tree of Support
April 2018
The AARP Public Policy Institute writes about how Dr. Shireen Lewis’ initial idea grew into the community that SisterMentors is today.
Just Asking: Shireen Lewis
Interview by Neely Tucker
April 2015
Shireen Lewis , 55, is founder of SisterMentors, which aims to mentor girls from their early academic years through college graduation and help women of color to earn doctorates. The program has helped 26 women to go to college and 56 to earn doctorates.
Articles
Ms Magazine features SisterMentors
Two decades ago, Ms. magazine interviewed the founder of SisterMentors, Dr. Shireen Lewis, in its Summer 2000 issue—and here we are again, just as SisterMentors celebrates its 25th anniversary this September. Read the full article on msmagazine.com
Black Girlhood
The Black Scholar continues to celebrate the journal's Fiftieth Anniversary with the release of its latest issue, “Black Girlhood," which highlights the significance, challenges and beauty of Black girls. There is a growing body of scholarship on the experiences of...
Lewis ’89 is Ebony “Unsung Hero”
Originally published in UVA Lawyer - Fall 2009 - View Original Article Dr. Shireen Lewis '89 received an “Unsung Hero" award from Ebony magazine, for making a difference for children, schools, and communities. Lewis is the executive director of EduSeed and founder of...
Dr Shireen Lewis – The Trinidad Guardian Feature
By Laura Dowrich-Phillips Obtaining a doctorate is different from getting a bachelor’s or masters degree. For one thing, the duration of time it takes to get a doctorate is longer, seven to ten years on average. Then there’s the research, which, depending on the...
Duke Magazine Mini-Profile on SisterMentors
When Shireen Lewis entered grade school in Trinidad and Tobago, her country was in its early years of independence from Great Britain. Fortunately, it had a leader who acted on the maxim that educating its young people was essential to a successful future for the young Caribbean nation.
Shireen Lewis, Entre solidarité et générosité
Qu’ont en commun Losang, la Tibétaine, Najat, la Saoudienne et Kangbai, l’Africaine? Elles font parties du programme de SisterMentors, une organisation basée à Washington, qui encourage l’éducation parmi les femmes et les jeunes filles de couleur.
Shireen Lewis, Between Solidarity and Generosity
by Sabrina Pollard In January 2003 SisterMentors was featured in DIVAS 35, a magazine for women of color, published in Paris, France. DIVAS is distributed in France, the United States, Martinique, and Guadeloupe. You can also read the article in French. What do women...
Washington Women
The educated mind comes at a price: hundreds of hours of research and study; reams of papers; group projects; intensive examinations; conscientious notes from lengthy lectures. And for doctoral candidate students, that's the easy part, says Washingtonian Shireen...
Reinventing Community: SisterMentors Dissertation Support Groups For Women of Color
by Avonie Brown No doubt you have heard it said in more ways than one that, "Black people just can't get it together;" or that "We don't know how to work together." But just how truthful are these statements? Our history of resistance and survival suggests otherwise....
Women of Color Mentoring Each Other
by Shireen K. Lewis, Ph.D. Originally published on AAUW.org In September 1997 I founded a dissertation support group at Sisterspace and Books, a Washington, D.C. bookstore, to introduce a new paradigm of mentoring and support for women doctoral candidates of color. I...
Dissertation Writers Find Power in Numbers
by Denise Barnes Shireen Lewis has climbed the fractious ivory tower. Now, she's demystifying the dreaded dissertation process for women of color who want to achieve doctoral status. Ms. Lewis, who holds a doctorate of philosophy in French literature from Duke...
Ms. Magazine Article on Shireen Lewis
by R. Erica Doyle 1997, SHIREEN LEWIS WAS ANOTHER isolated scholar climbing up the ivory tower, teetering on the brink of that limbo known as ABD (all but dissertation) "Something was going to give," Lewis remembers, "and It wasn't going to be me!" Drawing on her...
Replicating Ourselves
by Julianne Malveaux, Ph.D. Featured in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries, Black Issues in Higher Education, December 1999 What has the 20th century meant for African American women in higher education? Over a steaming cup of tea, I smile as I fall into the...
Gendering Négritude: Paulette Nardal’s Contribution to the Birth of Modern Francophone Literature
What about the women of Négritude? The Négritude movement has traditionally been characterized and historicized as a literary and cultural movement by black men against the imperialist, masculinist power of the West. There are very few studies that fully explore the...
Press Releases
Tibetan Woman Makes History as One of First in West to Earn Doctorate
Losang Rabgey made history on March 1, 2006 as one of the first Tibetan women in the West to earn a doctorate. Rabgey was awarded her doctorate in Feminist Anthropology from the University of London, England. A participant in EduSeed's SisterMentors nonprofit program...
Leader of D.C. Nonprofit Honored by College for Distinguished Achievement
WASHINGTON, DC---Dr. Shireen Lewis, Executive Director of EduSeed and Founder of EduSeed's SisterMentors program, was honored by Douglass College on April 13, 2005, for her outstanding contribution to the education and mentoring of women and girls of color. Douglass...