The Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) Black American Council Presents the 32nd Annual Frances M. Franklin Scholarship and Protégé Luncheon

Friday, May 6, 2022 | 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Registration Information:

$25 per ticket, additional donations to the Frances Franklin Scholarship Fund appreciated.

Registration for Tri-C Students is Free. Click here for student registration.

Join us for an uplifting and informative virtual celebration featuring keynote speaker Jowan Smith, founder and CEO of Getting Our Babies to College 101 and 1,000 Ties.

About Jowan Smith:

Born and raised in Cleveland, Jowan Smith has a big heart for the city. After graduating from John Hay High School, she started a career in event planning and earned degrees in business and marketing from Bryant and Stratton College and Cleveland State University.

While working for the Cuyahoga County Department of Job & Family Services, Smith saw firsthand how the lack of postsecondary education options impacts our community. Years later, while going through the college preparation process with her eldest daughter, she noticed the lack of resources available to parents and decided to change that narrative.

Smith's Getting Our Babies to College 101 proposal won the Education category in the Cleveland Leadership Centers Accelerate 2017 competition. She created the curriculum to assist families with the postsecondary education process starting in middle school. As CEO, Smith facilitates workshops in five local school districts and one prison. The program has already helped thousands of students and parents navigate the journey to a college degree.

In 2019, Smith created an event for young men ages 6-21 called 1,000 Ties. The goal of the event which features workshops on self-love, handshaking, eye contact and communication skills, as well as a lesson on how to tie a tie is to impart skills that will benefit participants throughout their lives and to connect them with community mentors. That event inspired Smith to create the 1,000 Ties Etiquette Program, which won the Accelerate 2020 competition and a 2021 Stiletto Boss Award.

Smith has been recognized with several other recent awards, including Future History Maker 2019, the 2019 NCNW Trailblazer Award, CPL Drum Major of Change 2020 and a 2020 Phenomenal Woman Award. She was also honored as an Emerging Philanthropist by Soul of Philanthropy Cleveland in 2019.

She is the author of two children's books, Zakari Goes to College and Grandma Hatties Ice Cream, and is currently working on her third.

As a mother of two, Smith is connected to the current needs and goals of youth. She does this work because she feels it is her purpose. It's more than a business it's a movement.

2021 Frances M. Franklin Scholarship and Academic Award winners: