Hedi Belkaoui ’04
For virtually his entire life Hedi Belkaoui ’04 has been a member of the Dominican family. And since a very young age, he has been an activist and advocate for less fortunate people. A faculty member’s son (his mother has been teaching at Dominican since 1980), Hedi was a four-year-old in Dominican’s childhood education center. Later, considering himself a privileged student in a private high school, Hedi volunteered to help underprivileged children read. He selected Dominican because he wanted to be a teacher and believed that the Dominican values would augment his own.
While vigorously soaking up his education, and assisted in part by inspiring professors like Sr. Mary Kremer, OP ’62, Hedi invigorated the Student Government Association, led the university anti-war effort and became the first sophomore student liaison to the Board of Trustees. A Golden Apple scholar who promised to teach for five years in a high-need high school, Hedi is fulfilling his personal mission at Providence St. Mel School, where he teaches high school students to believe in themselves. “I just want to give back,” Hedi said. “If my students can learn to think critically about the world around them, then I have done my job.” Hedi is now at Dominican earning his master’s degree.
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A long-time inner city high school religion teacher, Sr. Mary Kremer, OP ’62 came to higher education later in life. Someone suggested she teach at her alma mater, but the idea of “spending five years to earn my doctorate” was a bit daunting. Nevertheless, Sr. Mary did earn her PhD, “in six years, not five,” she quipped, and came to Dominican, serving as director of undergraduate education and recently, director of the Teach for America program. Her “toughness” in the classroom inspired Hedi Belkaoui, who cited her perseverance and commitment to social justice as factors that helped make him the teacher he is today.