Darrin Dixon

Darrin Dixon wants to help make the world a better place. His journey toward that goal began when he was in high school, and he’s been plugging away ever since—overcoming early problems with reading and grammar. Today, he will graduate from Pitt with the Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and urban studies, with a 3.95 grade point average.

He’s been accepted by Pitt’s School of Law and is set to begin his studies there this fall.

Interestingly, it wasn’t until his junior year in high school that Dixon even began to think about going to college, although he’d methodically been preparing himself for higher education without even being conscious of it.

As a high school freshman, Dixon recognized that he was reading slower than his classmates. He was doing fine in school, but he knew he could do better. Discovering that he was reading at a seventh-grade level, he set out to improve.

“I did the ‘Hooked on Phonics’ program and actually have gone through it about three times, and I worked on my grammar a lot and still do,” Dixon says. “I also spend a lot of time in the [Pitt] Writing Center, and have gone there for four years.”

Grades and school weren’t foremost on Dixon’s mind in his early high school years. He spent most of his time then competing on his school’s track team and participating in Young Life, a nondenominational youth ministry. It was his involvement with Young Life and his religious faith that first inspired him to try to change the world for the better, Dixon says.

Only after hearing some of his high school classmates talk about taking the SATs did Dixon begin putting forth the extra effort to get into college. He knew he’d need an education to realize his dreams. His determination and hard work paid off. He improved from earning an 87 percent average as a high school freshman to a 96 percent average in his senior year. As a Pitt undergraduate, Dixon has made the dean’s list every term.

Dixon says his mother, a single parent who was the first college graduate in her family, gave him quiet encouragement. “I had a lot of free time as a kid and came home from school and did my homework,” he recalls. “I always worked hard. I was the kid who was out there shoveling snow. I had all sorts of odd jobs,” including selling newspapers door to door, a job that he continued to do while attending Pitt.

He has also worked as a resident assistant for six terms, first in Lothrop Hall and now in Sutherland Hall, where he has initiated programs to create a supportive environment for students living in those residence halls. In addition, he is a member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars.

Dixon’s service has not been limited to Pitt’s campus. After his freshman year here, he traveled to Durban, South Africa, with a Habitat for Humanity group to build houses for the economically disadvantaged.

“My time in South Africa changed my perspective on life,” he says. “The discrimination, poverty, and lack of resources that Black South Africans lived with during apartheid still lingered throughout the society.”

Seeing how poor Blacks lived in South Africa, Dixon decided that any disadvantages he had experienced as an African American male growing up in a single-parent household were minu-scule by comparison. Traveling around the world two years later on Pitt’s Semester at Sea shipboard education program, seeing living conditions in such developing countries as India, Tanzania, and Vietnam, reaffirmed Dixon’s decision.

For a while, Dixon considered pursuing a graduate degree with a specialization in international nonprofit work, but an internship last summer redirected his future course. Interning at the American Foundation for Negro Affairs’ National Education and Research Fund, a nonprofit education organization founded in 1968 to mentor Black students, Dixon served as personal assistant to the fund’s 102-year-old president, Samuel L. Evans.

Evans continually encouraged Dixon to go to law school, telling him that he’d have to know the law if he hoped to change the law. Dixon took Evans’ advice to heart and is set to begin studies in Pitt’s law school this fall.

“I want to be a true leader,” Dixon says. “This means I am called to serve.”