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Dr. Jeanelle Norman received her bachelor's degree in education from Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee. She received her Master of Arts in Education from Illinois State University as well as her Ph.D degree in 1986. Dr. Norman is currently the president of the NAACP Decatur, Illinois Branch as well as the coordinator of the Community Restorative Board of Macon County Adult Redeploy Illinois Project. More recently she managed the formation of the Area Leaders and Education Response Team (ALERT) in Decatur Illinois, which help calm the community in case of a police shooting especially if the victim is a minority. For more than a decade she served as chairperson of the Education Committee at the NAACP Illinois State Conference. In 1971 Dr. Norman was working at MacArthur High School when she became apart of the “Decatur 14” who were Decatur School District teachers fired by the Board of Education because of their participation in a strike. In 1981 Dr. Norman was elected to the Decatur Board of Education after she defeated a 10-year incumbent, later in 1983 Dr. Norman becomes president of the board and served for a total of three consecutive terms. She was the Director of College Futures Program at Richland Community College (RCC) funded through a Higher Education Cooperation Act Grant, which empowers minority high school graduates to pursue higher education. Dr. Norman’s career at Richland Community College began when she was apart of the founding faculty in 1972 on the Divisions of Communications committee. In 1987-1988 Dr. Norman was awarded Faculty of the Year at RCC. Dr. Norman retired in 2002 from RCC as a full-time English Professor although being one of the first to receive the honor of Professor Emeritus status in 2006 from RCC. In 2016 Dr. Norman was awarded the Citizen of the Year Award by Decatur IL mayor, Julie Moore Wolfe. Dr. Norman was the chosen speaker at the annual 2017 Martin Mangan Lecture.