U of A Graduate Works to Raise Funds for African Students to Study Abroad

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Anna Reed Phillips

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – In the three years after she completed her education, Anna Reed Phillips moved from Little Rock to the African nation of Rwanda. There, she found her calling helping Rwandans and other African students go to college.

Phillips will talk about the challenges she faced in a commencement address at 3 p.m. Friday, May 8, to students graduating from the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas. It’s the second year in a row that Phillips will be on the stage for the college’s commencement. Last year, she was honored as the winner of the college’s award for outstanding young alumni.

In a departure from the past, the college’s commencement exercises will be on a Friday this year instead of Saturday. The change was made to alleviate congestion that comes with stacked commencement ceremonies of various colleges on campus.

Phillips plans to describe some of her experiences in Rwanda, relating them to themes relevant to the graduates – courage to take risks, service and giving back. She earned a bachelor’s degree in communication disorders from the University of Arkansas in 2004 and went on to the University of South Carolina for a master’s degree in speech pathology. After doing an internship in New York, the Marianna native went to work as a speech language pathologist at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock.

She left Arkansas in 2009 to work in Kigali, Rwanda, establishing the first speech pathology program and clinic at the country’s primary hospital to serve children and adults with communication disorders and hearing loss. She also worked as project coordinator for Starkey Hearing Foundation’s efforts in Rwanda, managing the first project in the country to bring hearing aids to more than 2,500 children and adults with hearing loss.

During part of this time, Phillips was teaching English at a boarding school for Rwandan genocide orphans. She started a program to help qualified Rwandan students apply to international universities, teaching standardized test preparation and counseling students on college applications.

That work led Phillips to co-found the Bridge2Rwanda Scholars Program in 2011.

Phillips now lives in Memphis and serves as director of development for the scholars program. It has helped more than 100 African students win scholarships to 50 universities in five countries for a total of $21 million in scholarship funding.

The college preparation, leadership and career development program trains top Rwandan students to compete for international university scholarships and return to Africa upon completing their education to become leaders on the continent. In 2014, the program expanded to include students from neighboring conflict-torn countries, including South Sudan, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia.

Phillips is the daughter of the late U of A Board of Trustees member Stanley Reed and Charlene Reed, a member of the U of A Campaign Arkansas steering committee. While a student at the U of A, she was the 2003 Homecoming Queen, a 2004 Senior Scholar with a 4.0 grade-point average and won an outstanding student award from the college in 2004. She previously served on the College of Education and Health Professions Dean’s Advisory Council.

About the College of Education and Health Professions: The College of Education and Health Professions prepares teachers for all levels of public school, school administrators, school researchers and policymakers, special education teachers, adult educators and professionals for higher education. On the health side, the college prepares nurses, speech-language pathologists, health educators and administrators, recreation professionals, rehabilitation counselors and human performance researchers.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.