Gregory Diggs:
CLASS OF 1980
Springbrook High SchoolClass of 1980
Silver spring, MD
Tennessee State UniversityClass of 1986
Nashville, TN
Sherwood High SchoolClass of 1980
Sandy spring, MD
White Oak Middle SchoolClass of 1977
Silver spring, MD
Cannon Road Elementary SchoolClass of 1974
Silver spring, MD
Gregory's Story
Life
Was short, stocky, black kid with a big mouth. Sports: track and wrestling.Tennessee State University: 2 degrees in Psychology. Recently finished a Ph.D in education. Married, Have 2 kids and I'm old, bald and fat...and loving every minute of it.
School
I loved school...friends,sports and lots of pretty girls. Never took classes seriously and mostly played around by getting into other folks' business.
Favorite subjects were gym class and psychology. Had fun with Mr. Frace and had a huge crush on Mrs. Mathna-Jones.
My best friends were Jason Armstead and Jim Graves.
College
College was all the way...live!
I started out as a pre-med major, mostly under the influence of my dad who was an administrator at NIH. Finally ended up as a Psych major.
I was active. AFROTC, where I became group commander and Drill Team Commander, on the way to be trained to be a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Force. Member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and served as President...also Vice Pres. of the Pan-Hellenic Council. I was also an RA in the Dorm. It was cool, but the social stuff cost me an extra year in school. All to the good.
I had good teachers and good friends. Favorite things included Homecoming, The Aristocrat of Bands, Sneaking into the girl's dormitory, The Alpha life, Stan and Jeff were my boys all the way thru, my first serious and long-time girl---Celeste, Playing Spades in the Sub and in the dorms. Football games. Hanging out at Fisk, Meharry and Vanderbilt. Dusk to Dawn Parties.
Fred Jackson, Gigi Peek, George Washington, Milton Todd, Tony Spratlen, Lynette Jenkins, Minoah Collins, Karen Gorman, April Love, Regina Hampton, Vroi Taylor, Major Michelangelo McCallister, Col. Guthrie, Dr. Barret and Dr. Chatman along with Dr. Risby. All these folks and more were people that I admired or worked with.
Those were the days. I even came back for grad school.
Workplace
Started of...Expand for more
f working with kids in drug treatment (Meharry Medical School) and a psychiatric hospital (Cumberland Hall). Continued in mental health working for the state of TN, then got recruited away to the Mayor's Office in Nashville to help staff the Office of Drug Policy.
Got married and my wife went to Johns Hopkins for grad school, so I was home for a while from 91 - 96. Got involved in program evaluation related to substance abuse prevention. When my wife was finished, I went back to school to get a Ph.D. in Research and Evaluation Methods.
I did some education policy stuff for about a year, working for the Education Commission of the States. But I like the evaluation stuff, so I was at National Research Center for a couple of years before folks convinced me to do the academic thing.
So now, I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado at Denver.
Military
Ha. I was almost military.
I did the Air Force ROTC thing. Very nice. Went to Officer Candidate school. I was a group commander for the cadets at my detatchment and commander of the Drill Team. But. I was taking too long to get out of school (double major, way to active) and lost the technical slot that I had won earlier. Luckily for me, they gave me a choice and let me retire...because I probably would have been doing missle duty in Minot, ND instead of having the Air Force pay for my graduate school.
But I missed it. I have an uncle who was a Tuskegee Airman and was one of the first 3 Black generals in the AF. And many of my good friends served for many years. My roomate, Stan Rogers...for example...has recently left the Air Force as a specialist in electronic warfare (he has a Ph.D in engineering).
So. I'm a wannabe military guy. Technically, I was enlisted during my time in school...but I never really did anything but go to school.
Shout outs to the real military folks from SHS who served the country for real.
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