(Primary image credit to Jacquelyn Gray/Bustle)
In an online universe populated by news media that seems to thrive on negative stories about violence and hate, it's refreshing to stumble across a gem that restores some faith in the future of our species. This month’s School Spotlight features one such story coming from the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy—and a budding engineer who helped make a mother’s dream come true. The story was initially broken by WJBK-TV2, but quickly became a viral sensation lauded the world over.
Sharina Jones is a 30-year-old new mother—and a paraplegic. A childhood accident when she was five resulted in paralyzation from the waist down, confining her to a wheelchair. She’s managed every curveball that life has pitched her way, including writing a book about her experiences. Sometimes, though, she just wanted to be like everyone else. For Sharina, that included being able to walk her baby down the street, like any other new mom.
“A lot of my friends have babies and they are out, running with their babies in the stroller,” Sharina told WJBK-TV2. “I thought, 'What am I going to do?'”
Enter the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy (U of D Jesuit) and then-junior Alden Kane. U of D Jesuit has an exploratory STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) course as part of its student curriculum, which also features original research and work by the students in conjunction with academic and private research laboratories in the community.
In Alden’s case, he was working on a final project in cooperation with the University of Detroit Mercy when they caught wind of Sharina’s dilemma.
The biggest priority for the project was the baby’s safety, Alden told WJBK-TV2, combined with functionality for Sharina to use independently.
It took six months of hard work and experimentation, but the prototype was finally completed. Sharina can now take the baby’s car seat and clip it into the “stroller” rigging, attaching it to her wheelchair so she can walk her child by herself. “It was priceless seeing the design on her wheelchair, being used with her child in it," Alden said.
Alden plans to continue perfecting his creation, eventually patenting it and helping mothers in wheelchairs everywhere. From our perspective, this project—both its conception and its outcome—perfectly reflects U of D Jesuit’s mission to produce “Men of Others,” encouraging its students to look past themselves to see how they can improve their community.
We love to feature school administrators and the innovative, passionate work these professionals do—so that we can inspire you to do similarly magnificent things at your own school. Occasionally, though, we need to remember the reason we continue “fighting the good fight,” as it were. We soldier on, through hectic days and long evenings, so that we can find and nurture talented, compassionate students like Alden Kane. It’s people like him—and you—who change the world, one project at a time.
ISM will feature a new school each month to share stories of student, programmatic, and administrative success with nearly 30,000 private school administrators every month. If your school has a success story you'd like the world to hear, contact our Source editor.
Additional ISM resources:
The Source for Private School News Vol. 14 No. 5 School Spotlight: Private School Student Proves "Irish Need Not Apply" Signs Existed
The Source for Business Managers Vol. 12 No. 9 Saving Money at the Office Printer
The Source for Private School News Vol. 13 No. 7 Private School Sixth Grader's Science Fair Experiment Cited as "Pilot Study" in New Lionfish Research
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 39 No. 16 Establishing Student Achievement Levels
I&P Vol. 34 No. 13 New Research: The Relationship Between Faculty Professional Development and Student Performance
I&P Vol. 27 No. 14 Creative Ways to Demonstrate Programmatic Success
