lawyer

B.S. Cornell University; J.D. Ohio State University; M.Ed. Harvard University

Dean of Global and Diversity Education

Work Phone: 860-945-7888

Year Appointed:

Jamella earned a bachelor s degree from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, where she also minored in business. After graduating from Cornell, she deferred pursuing her master's in education at Harvard to serve as a corps member and service leader at City Year of Columbus. From there, while earning her master s at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, she worked as an elementary school teacher at King Elementary School in Cambridge, MA; worked as a facilitator in the Harvard Summer Literacy Institute; and as a literacy teacher at the Dorchester Neighborhood Charter School.

Upon graduating, at the behest of former President Clinton and President Nelson Mandela, she moved to South Africa to manage the Clinton Democracy Fellowship at City Year, helping to lead that organization s first international expansion initiative. After several years in South Africa, Jamella returned to the United States to work as a vice president of communications and professional development for the Ohio Charter School Association and vice president of development and special initiatives at Concept Schools in Chicago, where she helped raise nearly $2 million and composed the organization s first strategic business plan.

In , Jamella earned a Juris Doctor at Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University, a program for which she was the Katherine C. Jones Scholarship recipient and was also awarded the Marsha Schermer Scholarship by the Columbus Bar Foundation. While in law school, Jamella worked as a two-year summer associate at the law firm of Dinsmore Shohl, LLP, and taught in the Ohio Law Leadership Institute, a program developed to provide an opportunity for high school students from underserved communities to learn skills that may help them become lawyers and leaders in their communities. At graduation, Jamella was awarded the Harry S. and Georgina Lett Memorial Award for outstanding service to the Moritz College of Law. A recipient of numerous other awards, Jamella has also been awarded the Compaq Leadership Award, an award honoring alumni of City Year who have distinguished themselves through continued civic leadership and commitment to service.

At Taft, Jamella is the former head of the Global Service Scholarship Department and now serves as dean of Global and Diversity Education. In this capacity, she has created the Center for Global Leadership and Service, an "action tank" developed though the Edward E. Ford Foundation Educational Leadership Grant initiative (www.eeford.org ) and subsequent matching donations.