ESU’s Director of Multicultural Affairs Receives Woman of Distinction Award

In her junior year at Syracuse University, Cornelia Sewell-Allen lost her brother to gun violence. At 20 years old, she thought of dropping out of college and moving back home to support her mom. With the help of her college adviser, Sewell decided to stay in school and became the first member of her family to graduate from college.

“Education is so important to me because my mom has an elementary school education and my dad does not know how to read or write. I always saw education as a means to better life, not only for me, but my family too,” she said.

Now the director of multicultural affairs at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, Sewell recently received the second annual African American Network’s Woman of Distinction Award, an award presented to a woman who shows dedication to community service. Sewell always wanted to devote her life to the service of others.

After receiving her master’s degree from the University of Scranton, Sewell immersed herself in higher education, with a desire to help young adults in the same way her advisers helped her. She began working in the office of admission at ESU in 2006. Six years later, Sewell chased her passion to develop services for historically underrepresented groups in the office of multicultural affairs.

“I wanted students to see that anything worth having requires hard work. Sometimes they may face barriers, but they can overcome those obstacles through persistence and dedication,” she said.

Currently, Sewell is responsible for the overall management of the multicultural center. She conducts program reviews and develops student learning outcomes, advises the new multicultural organization advisory board and mentoring program, and is an advocate for diversity on college campuses. She is also is the current chair of the Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity (CORED). In her time on campus, she has served on several committees including chairing the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Breakfast committee, which brought the largest crowd in history to the university in 2015. She also chaired the African American Heritage Month Committee, Latino Heritage Month Planning Committee, and the annual Martin Luther King Day of Service. In 2008, she was the recipient of the Pennsylvania School Counselor Association Scholarship. She’s active in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) and the Pennsylvania Black Conference on Higher Education (PBCOHE) Educational Management and Leadership Cohort, and she was the doctoral fellow for the 2014-2015 academic year at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

Sewell looks forward to obtaining her doctorate in the near future and eventually teaching in the classroom while positively impacting her community to support those in need. She will accept the Woman of Distinction award at a ceremony at the Willow Tree Inn in Stroudsburg on Sunday, May 3.

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