Welcome to the second in our series of failure storytelling this season. And it’s got some incredible scope to it. Today’s storyteller not only tells his failure stories as needed, he has a published a short autobiography that unflinchingly describes the very difficult first half of his life.

Hameen Shabazz, in our Academic and Career Advising unit, endured a turbulent and violent childhood. The public school system taught him little in the way of reading, writing and arithmetic and his failures in school gave way to great success selling illegal drugs. But that success was finite, when he was arrested, convicted and served thirteen years in the South Carolina correctional system. After that time, in the hard years of trying to make a fresh start, he found his way to MTC and those early academic failures began to change thanks to all that he learned in prison. Not just basic literacy but also the skills of resilience, dignity and patience.

So instead of a capsule failure story, today we’re going to talk about the academic failures of a lifetime. And you’ll understand that to hear these stories is never to dwell in failure but to always return a deep well of determination and self-reflection and recovery. For our guest today, there is no final failure, only delay. There is no loss that cannot be answered in time, with patience and the support of others and the willingness to try again and to try another way. Today, we talk with a failure practitioner who has clearly transformed those failures into a meaningful and successful life. 

Hameen has founded a community non-profit group that brings a holistic approach to serving at-risk youth, system-impacted people and families, and underserved communities. You can find out more about this organization, which is very much like his work at the college, at the website for Project NAS (Not a Statistic).