{"id":35142,"date":"2015-01-30T14:57:14","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T18:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=35142"},"modified":"2022-10-25T11:52:43","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T15:52:43","slug":"cleveland-catch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2015\/01\/30\/cleveland-catch\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleveland catch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Diamond<\/a>

Diamond Williams links social work with mental health and community activism. Her early knowledge of Wright State and her father\u2019s connection drew her to the university.<\/p><\/div>\n

Even though she grew up in Cleveland, Diamond Williams got an early look at Wright State University as a young girl \u2014 from the back of her father\u2019s wheelchair.<\/p>\n

Her father, Daryl Williams, was left paralyzed in a traffic accident when his daughter was only 2. But he enrolled at Wright State in 1999, and Williams would come down from Cleveland to visit him in the summers.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was in a motorized wheelchair, and I would ride on the back through the tunnels,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her father, a quadriplegic, would go on to get his bachelor\u2019s degrees in business and marketing. He died about a year ago, donating his body to the Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine Anatomical Gift Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Williams\u2019 early knowledge of Wright State and her father\u2019s strong connection drew her to the university. She enrolled in 2010 and declared biology as her major.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to be a doctor,\u201d she recalled. \u201cI wanted to do spinal-cord research because my dad had a spinal-cord injury. I was going to save lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a couple of years, however, Williams feared she would not get into medical school and felt a little defeated.<\/p>\n

But she discovered the allure of social work<\/a> and switched her major.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoctors keep people alive; social workers help people live,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"Diamond<\/a>

Social work major Diamond Williams is a president\u2019s ambassador, member of the Dean\u2019s Student Advisory Board, Social Work Club representative on the Student Government House of Representatives and works at Student Legal Services.<\/p><\/div>\n

Williams hopes to use her social work skills and interest in mental health and activism to give back to her community.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people with mental health needs don\u2019t get the services they need,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople need to feel safe and welcome in their community. I\u2019m trying to balance mental health and community because where you were brought up is how your brain works.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams attended Cleveland Early College High School @ John Hay, graduating a year early. High school was a blur of studies and activities ranging from community service to the debate team.<\/p>\n

Williams is no less active at Wright State.<\/p>\n

She is a president\u2019s ambassador, a student representative for Wright State President David R. Hopkins, and serves on the COLA Dean\u2019s Student Advisory Board. She is also the Social Work Club representative on the Student Government House of Representatives, advocating for her club and seeking support for events.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always at a meeting, always at an event, always doing something,\u201d she said. \u201cBeing at Wright State and being with students, that\u2019s my fun. I like to stay busy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams also works at Student Legal Services and on weekends waits tables at Steak \u2019n Shake.<\/p>\n

Williams is scheduled to graduate in the spring and wants to pursue her master\u2019s degree in social work. She has applied to Wright State and the University of Akron.<\/p>\n

She wants to eventually return to the Cleveland area, where her mother works as a dialysis technician and her grandparents own a minimarket near downtown that includes a convenience store, filling station, restaurant and barber shop.<\/p>\n

Williams said Wright State is a special place and enables students to succeed because it has every possible resource.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need help with tutuoring? They\u2019ve got it. You need help with writing? They\u2019ve got it. You feel like you\u2019re not multicultured enough? They\u2019ve got it,\u201d she said. \u201cEverything you need to be successful is here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wright State is engaged in a $150 million fundraising campaign<\/a> that promises to further elevate the school\u2019s prominence by expanding scholarships, attracting more top-flight faculty and supporting construction of state-of-the-art facilities. Led by Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks and Amanda Wright Lane, great grandniece of university namesakes Wilbur and Orville Wright, the campaign has raised more than $110 million so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diamond Williams links social work with mental health, community activism. Her early knowledge of Wright State and her father\u2019s connection drew her to the university. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":35147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,747,715,4889,2089],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-liberal-arts","category-news","category-social-work-social-work-human-services","category-social-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35142"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132320,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35142\/revisions\/132320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}