By Victor Ramos, Raul Ramos
With reporting by Shayne Guzman
When Khayriyyah Ali was growing up on Long Island in the 1960s, high school was not her thing. While she had been an honor student, at the time, her social life was far more important than sitting in a classroom, and she dropped out at the age of 16. She knew that she eventually wanted to continue her education and planned to take the General Education Development (GED) test and go straight to college.
Some other life choices steered her in a different direction, however, and after a stint in Florida and an early marriage, she returned to New York and received her GED at 21. Before obtaining her GED, Ms. Ali was already married with children and had gone through a series of jobs that she didn’t stay in for long, as she found them most unsatisfying. “I wasn’t really fixed on accomplishing what my real goal was,” she said. “Which was to go to college and study electrical engineering.”
Ms. Ali believes that the period of time when she was a young woman, pursuing her education, was challenging for women considering “non-traditional careers”, but she still managed to push through. The school she attended, CUNY’s New York Institute of Technology, was a great fit for her, and she earned her bachelor’s and a master’s degree — but not in electrical engineering. She felt a strong desire to help others and decided to pursue a degree in education, enabling her to assist others in achieving their educational goals.
Ms. Ali’s decision to change her major ultimately helped shape her career path. “I have this passion for helping people,” she said, and since 1991, she has worked with the State University of New York Educational Opportunity Center (SUNY EOC), where she is the Executive Director. “Back then [when the SUNY EOC started] it would take months to [obtain] the High School Equivalency Diploma, and this would also involve you having to wait about 6 months to get your high school diploma,” she commented on the early days of the SUNY EOC.
Ms. Ali was early in the process of making the SUNY EOC an official test site. She and her colleagues had to petition the state education department to get both authorization and accreditation. When the state representatives inspected the SUNY EOC’s original space, it was found to be too small, and its location in a mall, which was unacceptable. They ultimately found a new space and became an authorized GED testing site in 1998.
As they were relocating to their new space, Ms. Ali was given the privilege to design it to her specifications. One of their main testing rooms was designed to become one of the largest GED testing sites in New York City, and before the COVID-19 pandemic, they were the largest testing center site in New York State.
Ms. Ali is proud of the work she and her colleagues do at the SUNY EOC. She doesn’t care about age or gender; everyone is welcome, and she just wants everyone to succeed on their exam. “Ultimately, the environment is here to not only help you, but motivate you and give you all the tools and materials to succeed,” she said.
The SUNY EOC is funded by The State University of New York (SUNY) and enrolls approximately 250-300 students per semester, with a range of ages.
As Ms. Ali reflects on her time at the center and reminisces about the Lawrence sisters. The six sisters all came to study and take their GED, one of the youngest being the valedictorian of her class. They all passed the exam and went on to study at Nassau Community College, earning their associate’s degree in just two years. They all studied in the same discipline, and after completing their associate degrees, continued studying at SUNY Old Westbury, where they received their BA. Not stopping there, however, they ultimately received master’s degrees in public health from SUNY Downstate.
Seeing others meet their educational and life goals gives great meaning and satisfaction to Ms. Ali. “It’s about the love that I have for the (SUNY) EOC, for the community it serves,” she said. “I just feel grateful to be in a position where I’m so immersed and involved in something that I love to do.”