Moving toward a vision of future success

One of this year’s winners of the State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Student Excellence has become a mentor to his peers after being motivated by a senior he met in his freshman year at the University of Albany.

Inwood resident Habeeb Famuyide, a 2012 graduate of Lawrence High School and now a senior at Albany, received an award that honors SUNY students who demonstrate excellence not only in academics, but in other aspects of their college careers, including leadership, campus involvement, athletics, community service or the creative and performing arts. At a ceremony on April 5 in Albany, 248 students from 64 campuses were honored with the award.

“How terrible is it that I wasn’t surprised in the least when I heard?” said fellow Albany senior Marc Cohen, who has served with Famuyide in the school’s Student Association. “Habeeb is one of the most intelligent, hardworking, dedicated and kind individuals I have ever had the pleasure of calling a colleague and friend.”

Famuyide, 22, a finance and marketing major who has a 3.73 cumulative grade point average, has received four Spellman Academic Achievement awards, five scholarships and membership in Beta Gamma Sigma, the international business honor society. He was a lead researcher on a SUNY-approved project in finance, served as president of the campus chapter of the National Association of Black Accountants for the past two years and worked with the University of Albany’s Minority Association of Pre-Med Students and campus recreation to establish a charity basketball tournament and barbecue to benefit Relay for Life and the American Cancer Society.

“Kelethi Nwokocha was a senior when I was a freshman,” Famuyide said, referring to a mentor who shares his Nigerian heritage. “He was president of the NABA. He taught me how to go for an opportunity. He gave me perspective to think bigger. He took me under his wing, and we still keep in contact.”

Learning from a mentor, and becoming one himself, have helped Famuyide mature, according to longtime friend and fellow Albany senior Shane Roy. “When we came to college, I saw a boy turn into a young man,” said Roy, who met Famuyide at Lawrence Middle School after Famuyide’s family moved to Inwood from Far Rockaway. “He had great mentors who helped him turn into the man he is today.”

Through the accountants association, Famuyide attracted recruiters from elite financial services companies to campus, and served in several leadership roles in the Student Association, including chief of staff. He was a student representative on the Dean’s Leadership Council for the business school, a founding executive board member of the Fashion Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs, a tutor and resume critic for accounting students on campus as well as a tutor and mentor for Pine Hills Elementary School students in Albany.

“I think being a part of all these groups turned me into a leader,” Famuyide said. “When I was younger and I was asked to speak publicly, I’d be nervous. Joining all these different organizations helped. As a freshman, I spoke with a representative from Ernst & Young, and she said, ‘You should get comfortable being uncomfortable.’ Now I can speak in front of 500-plus people.”

Roy said that his friend has always been a “good talker,” but he realized how well Famuyide spoke in public the day he addressed a Lawrence High assembly in remembrance of student Uryan Rampersaud, 17, who died in 2011.

“The confidence he propelled through that speech was astonishing,” Roy recalled, “and I knew from that day that Habeeb was going to be a great public speaker and, more importantly, a great leader.”

Managing his time and making sacrifices to balance his schedule has helped
Famuyide, he said, as well as strong support from his father, Rasheed, who works in security in New York City; his mother, Termite Adele, a lawyer who works for the state; and his sisters, Halimah, 25, a lawyer who graduated from Cornell Law School last year, and Haisha, 16, a Lawrence High sophomore.

Habeeb will graduate on May 15 and begin his professional career next month, as a financial analyst for Merrill Lynch in Manhattan. Like Nwokocha, who moved back to Nigeria, Famuyide plans on helping his native homeland one day.

“My plan is to be in a position to accumulate knowledge and [to have] the fiscal ability to make an impact,” he said, adding that he advises others to “create a vision, have a mindset, picture it in your head that move toward that vision.”