Dana knew from a young age that she wanted to pursue higher education, particularly in business, despite the hardships that come with supporting oneself and navigating the education system alone.

Dana Bisher is a persistent and resilient first-generation college student earning her bachelor’s degree at U-M. Dana knew from a young age that she wanted to pursue higher education, particularly in business, despite the hardships that come with supporting oneself and navigating the education system alone. To accomplish this, she left home and began working two — sometimes three — jobs to save money, and as soon as she could, she enrolled in community college. Dana earned her associate degree from Harry S Truman College, where she was a Presidential Scholars Award recipient and a Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society member, and went on to earn admission to U-M’s highly selective organizational studies program.

Since arriving at U-M, Dana has become a student leader with the Global Scholars Program and Michigan Active Citizens. She has served as a resident assistant for the Global Scholars Program as well as a Collaborative Group Facilitator, meeting weekly with ten students completing a team-based internship with one of the program’s NGO partners. Additionally, she has worked as a researcher for the Organizational Studies Department, focusing on sustainability within Fortune 500 companies, and studied abroad in Barcelona to learn about international business practices and different human rights issues in the region. Her professors remark that she is “an extremely hardworking and promising student” who is “respected by her peers” and “intellectually curious and interculturally astute.”

Throughout her studies at U-M, Dana has been particularly focused on better understanding companies’ needs and learning to strategize solutions that benefit corporations while addressing shareholder needs. Her long-term goal is to build a law firm that will negotiate governmental and corporate contracts on a global scale with sensitivity to critical issues of human welfare.

CEW+ applauds Dana’s persistence in her educational goals and names her an AAUW: Mary Elizabeth Bittman Memorial Scholar.