ATHENS, Ohio --Ronale Brown Mitchell says her daughter talked about wanting to be a teacher from the time she was a little girl. And so the passion that Amanda Brown Cartee showed for her studies at Ohio University didn't surprise her mother or others who realized the extent of her determination.
It was their admiration of that commitment that prompted Cartee's friends at Ohio University to push for the posthumous awarding of an associate's degree, which was presented to her mother Jan. 27 at a ceremony attended by about 45 family members and friends. Cartee, 21, died Feb. 22, 2000, when her car was hit on Ohio 93 near Glen Roy in Jackson County.
"About a month before she passed away, Mandy said to me that if she could make a difference in just one person's life, that it would all be worth it," a tearful Mitchell noted as Cartee's husband of eight months, Andrew, laid a supportive hand on her right shoulder. "She didn't realize all those who she had already taught and that she is still affecting people today."
President Robert Glidden, attired in full academic regalia, presented the associate in arts degree to Mitchell at Alden Library, where Cartee was a student employee during her sophomore and junior years. The Vinton County native, who was the first in her family to attend college, was pursuing a bachelor's degree in education but already had earned enough credits for an associate's degree.
"The year she died, a memorial service was held on campus in Galbreath Chapel and a tree was planted along University Terrace, but the efforts she put into academics have not been formally acknowledged," says Bill Kimok, who has worked with his colleagues in Alden Library's Archives and Special Collections department and Kraig Curry in University College to change that. "Her education was so important to her -- and so much a part of who she was and who she was becoming."
Kimok thanked University College officials for ensuring the degree was awarded and Glidden for making Sunday's ceremony a priority. "It reinforces that the university is concerned with each and every one of its students and their families," he said.
Cartee was a work-study employee who processed archival materials in Archives and Special Collections. "We have hundreds of student workers here at the library. She was a rare student," said Dean of Libraries Julia Zimmerman. "She really captured the heart."An active member of her community, Cartee taught Sunday school at Allensville Church of Christ in Christian Union, and she and her husband portrayed Mary and Joseph in the church's live Nativity the December before she was killed. The following Christmas season, the Nativity was dedicated to Cartee. She also was on the church's softball league, 3CU (for Church of Christ in Christian Union), and her teammates wore her name on their jerseys during the 2000 and 2001 seasons. At Vinton County High School, where she graduated in 1997, Cartee tutored fellow students.
Kimok says Cartee was driven to learn. She wasn't a straight-A student, he says, but she was determined to make the most of her time and opportunities at Ohio University.
"She wasn't a person who took classes so she could get through the next hoop," Kimok says. "Amanda was driven to expand her horizons."
The thoughts of her instructor in a black poetry class she was taking winter quarter 2000 illustrate that. A letter by Gabrielle Civil, now an assistant professor of English at the College of St. Catherine in Minnesota, was read at Sunday's ceremony.
Civil wrote, in part: "Amanda Cartee wore big glasses that only magnified the warmth, curiosity and intelligence of her eyes. Always sitting in the back corner of my Comparative Approaches to Black Poetry class, she was an anchor of dedication. She wrote her own poems, developed her own voice and engaged the work of African-American, Caribbean and African poets. Although these authors were superficially different from her, Amanda was able to connect with them truly through the power of education and her own good mind and heart. Similarly, she worked with a very diverse group of students toward the final presentation. Black, white, male, female, urban and rural, these students all liked and respected Amanda Cartee and were devastated by her untimely passing. As was I. To this end, I believe that Amanda represented the best of Ohio University and its potential to create an environment of growth, empowerment, diversity and connection. It was a true honor and pleasure to teach Amanda Cartee."
