Website of Rehema Gray, Ph.D.

 E-mail Address: DrRGray@aol.com

I am inspired by the legacy of educational excellence from my parents, grandparents, foreparents, and African ancestors.

Rehema Gray, Ph.D. 

            Born into a family of educators, I give credit to my parents and grandparents for setting high educational standards for myself and four siblings. Reared in a progressive social environment, my father, in his early professional years, was a union leader in the Black teachers strikes for equal pay. Both my mother and father were products of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); my mother graduated from Howard University suma cum laude and spent her professional years as a public school educator. Then my father graduated from Wilberforce University, where he later taught and I spent most of my childhood. Upon receiving his doctorate from Ohio State University, my father set the doctoral bar for myself and my siblings to live up to. My siblings are also educators (two doctoral and one master's degrees), and two of them teach in college. Following the edicts of my parents, I received a Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio; a Master’s degree in sociology from California State University, Northridge; and a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from UCLA. My most influential life-altering experiences were participation in the founding of the Pan African Studies Department at CSUN, four and a half years living in Tanzania (East Africa), and sojourn to Egypt to witness the grandeur of African contributions to civilization and visit the world’s first university—the Temple of Waset. 

            Building on these influences, I have spent most of my professional years teaching African-American college students about their legacy and obligation to continue the struggle for equity and excellence. In Los Angeles and Baltimore I have conducted numerous K-12  teacher training sessions providing models for culturally-based curriculum development and culturally relevant teaching strategies for African-American students. In addition, I have provided guidance to African-American community organizations in developing and evaluating culturally-based social and educational programs. Upon observing a decline of cultural awareness and academic skills of African-American students entering college in 2001, I created Project PYRAMID, an Afrocentric math-science college preparatory program for middle school students. Implemented at Warren Lane School in Inglewood, I found that ordinary students accomplished extraordinary academic tasks when culturally connected to the curriculum. In that same year, I became faculty representative to the UCLA Community Collaborative, when the Advocates for Valley African-American Students and the CSUN DuBois-Hamer Institute For African-American Achievement joined this unique organization comprising community-university partnerships. Now serving as the Co-Principal Investigator, and am responsible for designing the research approach to document the culturally-based psychoeducational college preparatory model that the Collaborative seeks to produce.

             In addition to teaching, and current projects, I work with other community-oriented organizations that seek to enhance academic skills, expand educational opportunities and upgrade social conditions of African people in Africa and the Diaspora.

Website of Rehema Gray, Ph.D.

 E-mail Address: DrRGray@aol.com