Dorothy Jean Tillman II’s participated in Arizona State University’s commencement on May 6. It was the latest step on a higher-education journey the Chicago teen started when she took her first college course at age 10.
In between she earned
associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees.
When Tillman successfully
defended her dissertation in December, 2023, she became the youngest person —
at age 17 — to earn a doctoral degree in integrated behavioral health at
Arizona State, associate professor Leslie Manson told ABC’s “Good Morning
America” for a story Monday.
“It’s a wonderful celebration,
and we hope ... that Dorothy Jean inspires more students,” Manson said. “But
this is still something so rare and unique.”
Tillman, called “Dorothy
Jeanius” by family and friends, is the granddaughter of former Chicago Alderwoman
Dorothy Tillman.
When most students are just
learning to navigate middle school, her mother enrolled Tillman in classes
through the College of Lake County in northern Illinois, where she majored in
psychology and completed her associate’s degree in 2016, according to her
biography.
Tillman earned a bachelor’s in
humanities from New York’s Excelsior College in 2018. About two years later,
she earned her master’s of science from Unity College in Maine before being
accepted in 2021 into Arizona State’s Behavioral Health Management Program.
Most of her classwork was done
remotely and online.
Tillman attended her Arizona
State commencement in person and addressed the graduating class during the
ceremony.
Tillman told The Associated Press
on Tuesday, May 14, that she credits her grandmother and trusting in her
mother’s guidance for her educational pursuits and successes.
“Everything that we were doing
didn’t seem abnormal to me or out of the ordinary until it started getting all
of the attention,” said Tillman, now 18.
Post a Comment