September 30, 2009 04:31 PM Eastern Daylight Time
BELL CEO Tiffany Cooper Gueye Named to Boston Business Journal 40 Under 40 List
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BELL™ (Building Educated Leaders for Life™) has announced that Chief Executive Officer Dr. Tiffany Cooper Gueye has been named one of the city’s best and brightest young executives as part of the Boston Business Journal “40 Under 40” Awards. Gueye and the other winners, who were selected from hundreds of nominations, will be honored at a special event on October 1, 2009, at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel.

The award recognizes Gueye’s role in helping BELL transform the life opportunities of more than 1,600 students per year in Boston, and more than 9,000 students per year in cities throughout the country. For seventeen years, BELL has provided afterschool tutoring and mentoring to students in some of Boston’s most under-resourced communities. In addition, BELL operates one of the city’s largest summer programs.

As a key member of the BELL team for more than ten years, Gueye was named CEO in September 2008, and has helped drive further expansion of the program.

“I am very proud of this award, which is an acknowledgement of BELL’s impact in the community,” said Gueye. “The fact that my contributions with BELL have been recognized along with the accomplishments of other prominent local business leaders is a tribute to the important role BELL plays in the City of Boston.”

BELL offers summer and afterschool programs that provide tutoring and mentoring to students, who BELL calls “scholars,” in grades K–8. Although many scholars enter BELL’s summer and afterschool programs with academic skills at least one year below grade level, BELL’s programs have been scientifically proven to help children learn at a faster rate than their peers. In 2009, scholars in the BELL Afterschool program gained eight months of reading skills and ten months of math skills during the six-month program. Scholars in the BELL Summer program gained an average of approximately six months of reading and math skills during the intensive five-week program. These successful programs are having a significant and positive impact in the communities the BELL serves. Recently, 15 of the 30 elementary schools to emerge from “needs improvement” status in New York City were schools that incorporated BELL’s programs into their school improvement strategies.

At a very young age, Gueye dedicated herself to making high-quality education available to all children, and first began working at BELL while attending Boston College. Following graduation, she quickly climbed the ranks of BELL’s program management team and became Chief Operating Officer, overseeing a multi-million dollar annual operating budget. Gueye’s strong commitment to education also led her to pursue her Ph.D. in Educational Research, Evaluation and Measurement from Boston College while teaching graduate courses as well.

Gueye has been the driving force behind BELL’s rigorous, award-winning academic program. During her time at BELL, the organization has grown from serving a few hundred scholars to now serving more than 11,000 scholars in Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York and North Carolina. Through her leadership, BELL’s programs, outcomes and evaluation methods have been nationally recognized as best practices. As testimony to this success, President Barack Obama cited BELL in legislation (STEP-Up Act, 2005) as a model program, which enabled Gueye to work with his office in the development of the legislation.

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About BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life):

BELL, founded in 1992, is one of the nation’s leading providers of quality afterschool and summer learning programs. It is committed to enhancing the educational achievements, self-esteem and life opportunities of children living in under-resourced communities. BELL serves more than 11,000 children annually in schools throughout Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Detroit, Flint (Mich.), New York City, and Saginaw (Mich.). Please visit www.bellnational.org for more information.

Contacts:
Haselton Group for BELL
Collin Earnst, 617-933-9011
collin_earnst@haseltongroup.com