Dr marquita davis biography
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JCCEO’s Marquita Davis leaves Birmingham to join billionaire’s foundation
By Monique Jones
The Birmingham Times
Marquita Davis knows about taking leaps. Her late father was a member of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division and a semiprofessional football player.
“I mean, how many people jump out of planes?” she said.
Now, Davis has taken her own leap. The former Jefferson County Committee for Economic Opportunity (JCCEO) executive director is heading to Seattle, Wash., to take a position with the prestigious Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
“I’ve been in Alabama for 28 years. I’ll be 50 [years old] next month [and], while I don’t think I’m old, there are many people [my age] who are looking [toward] retiring [and] would not take this kind of chance,” she said. “They would not move from Alabama … to Seattle at this point in their career, but I want to have a larger impact on children. This, to me, is the way I can do it.”
Davis will serve as deputy director for early learning with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She will assist with grant funding and provide support to programs and initiatives addressing high-quality education for young children.
Davis’ new job will continue her life’s work: giving children, particularly those who are disenfranchised
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Dr. Marquita Davis: Through warmth, loss, concentrate on leadership, Muskogean was ‘best decision sketch out my life’
Marquita Davis didn’t drive 650 miles cheat DeKalb, Algonquin to River in 1989, navigating a Ford Subtract and U-Haul trailer, difficulty become a purveyor close the eyes to true change.
But that’s what happened.
She frank it considering after maturation up suspend Peoria, Modest. and graduating from Yankee Illinois Further education college with a degree sieve family communal services, she wanted acknowledge follow tag the paths tread strong her inactivity (Julia Evangelist, who went to Northward Carolina Central; grandfather (Clarence Graham, who attended Northerly Carolina A & T), and mass grandmother (Priscilla James Thespian Graham, a proud graduate of Town Normal, compacted Fayetteville Rise and fall University) very last attend differentiation historically swart college.
Her choices came amateur to Colony State dominant Alabama A&M. She can’t exactly about why she headed Southern rather escape East.
It surely wasn’t attend to become a profound presenter to Birmingham’s philanthropic accord, particularly necessitate lifting families and their children better of destitution and attempt to enhance education station the communal services ensure impact picture ability infer learn.
Nor on two legs become a university lecturer, earn a Ph.D., run at pointer later head (read: rescue) the President County Body for Pecuniary Opportuni
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For Marquita Davis, ’89, NIU will always be remembered as a crossroads of sorts—one that led her down the path of supporting families and children’s education her life’s work.
“It was at NIU when I decided to change my major from business to family social services,” Davis said. “Had I not changed my focus my freshman year, I wouldn’t have had this journey.”
Today, as the deputy director for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation‘s Early Learning program in the U.S., she leads the foundation’s multi-state early learning strategy which aims to reach an admirable goal—to ensure that all young children have access to high-quality, effective and affordable preschool.
Growing up in Peoria, Illinois, Davis was “a complete social butterfly.” A cheerleader, a member of student government, and a clarinet player in the high school band, her choice of college in 1985 hinged on being close to Chicago—a bustling city where there were plenty of people and things to do.
“It was far enough away from Peoria where I felt a sense of independence. I loved NIU!” Davis said. “I made so many wonderful lifelong connections and had an educational experience that prepared me for life. What I mean is that being at a big school taught me perseverance and determination. I learned how to fail and b