Biography

Cornelle’s Story
Cornelle D. Carney is a New Orleans native. Cornelle was born and raised on the westbank of the Mississippi River in a community named Algiers. He is one of nine children. When Cornelle was three years old he lost his father, a former Army Sergeant, to a tragic vehicle incident which forced his mother to care for him and his eighth siblings alone. After his father’s death, Cornelle’s mother moved the family to a suburban area just outside of New Orleans called St. Bernard Parish. He started school in St. Bernard Parish Public Schools system attending C. F. Rowley Elementary School, Chalmette Middle School and Chalmette High School. Cornelle joined the Chalmette Middle School marching band where he rose through the ranks to become the drum major. He made history in the predominately Caucasian school and community by becoming to first African American to lead any school band in the parish. After completion of middle school, Cornelle went to high school. Cornelle started to face resistance. Discrimination became more obvious to him during his high school years; and as a result, Cornelle started to get into trouble.

Hurricane Katrina: A story of hurt & hope.
Hurricane Katrina struck, devastating the St. Bernard Parish community. He and his family evacuated before the storm to Gwinnett County, Georgia where he started school. His family could not assimilate to the new culture so they packed up and moved back to New Orleans on Thanksgiving Day 2005. In December 2005, Cornelle started attending O. Perry Walker Charter High School in New Orleans. He did not want to be a student at Walker, but he had no other options. Pre-Katrina Walker was a school that was deemed a failing school by the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. The school was taken away from the controversial Orleans Parish School Board and chartered to the Algiers Charter School Association. Additionally, Walker was plagued by a school shooting approximately three years prior to Hurricane Katrina.

All of the stereotypes that Cornelle had of Walker were disproven when he was greeted by a stern, yet caring administrator—Mrs. Mary L.H. Laurie. Her first words to Cornelle were “good morning.” When he did not respond to her she immediately stopped him and gave him a speech about how giving someone the greeting of the day is basic courtesy and respect. Walker’s turnaround story was featured on CNN and was deemed a model school.

Cornelle was just a normal student in school. He did not participate in any extra-curricular activities. He went to each of his four classes during the day and went home when the bell rang at the end of the day. That was until he was recruited by his American Government teacher to join the newspaper club. Cornelle did not believe that he was up for the task as he did not think he was capable of writing for a campus paper. He accepted an offer to become a sports photographer for the paper, only because he was able to attend all of the school’s sports functions for free. He became the paper’s photography editor and eventually became the editor-in-chief of the paper. Cornelle was also recruited to join the Student Government Association, this time by his Geometry teacher. He was a sophomore class representative, junior class representative, and was elected in his senior year to become the president of the Student Government Association.

During his presidency, Cornelle led his Association to the state capitol to talk to talk to elected officials about creating more opportunities for youth to stay out of trouble during out of school hours. He also led them to the state capitol to explain how high-stakes testing programs-- Louisiana Education Assessment Program (LEAP) and Graduation Exit Exam (GEE)--are not fair ways to measure what students have learned. He also led his group of student leaders to Washington, D.C. to express the same sentiments.

He co-founded a national network of young planners all over the called the Young Planners Network. He also co-founded a group of youth leaders across the city of New Orleans that met with former Mayor C. Ray Nagin around issues involving teens called Greater New Orleans Youth Leaders Council. He was recognized by Mayor Nagin for his commitment to assisting in the rebuilding process of New Orleans.

Cornelle was featured on a CNN/Spike Lee Documentary Children of the Storm where his post-Katrina life was told to the world through the lens of a mini video camera provided to him by CNN. He was a speaker on PolicyLink’s Equity Blog: Men and Boys of Color with a panel of highly decorated activists, educators, writers and policy makers. He also participated in a William K. Kellogg Foundation forum on America’s minority male populations school to jail pipeline. Cornelle was the keynote speaker at the Young Planners Network 2008 conference in New York.

Cornelle graduated number six of his 250 student body in 2008. He began his post-secondary education at Loyola University New Orleans. Cornelle aspires to become an educator and education policy maker, specifically serving the young people of urban and disenfranchised communities.

He started working with students at New Orleans College Preparatory (NOCP) Middle School, which was a new start-up charter school. He was also hired on at the Greater New Orleans Afterschool Partnership (GNOAP) as the Youth Liaison/Youth Programs Associate. At GNOAP, Cornelle assisted with the development and deployment of a city-wide mapping initiative that engaged youth by having the canvass their neighborhood for youth-and family-friendly resources. The information collected was entered onto an online database that generated a map that is available for community use (www.neworleans.ilivehere.info). He interned with Tulane University School of Medicine’s Office of Community Affairs and Health Policy as a project assistant. There, he engaged youth in the planning process of building health clinics around the New Orleans area.

School became expensive for him so he joined the Louisiana Army National Guard to help pay for college. A year after his enlistment Cornelle was ordered to serve in Operation: Iraqi Freedom. He will be in Iraq until December 2010. He became a distant learner while at war, continuing his studies online at Grand Canyon University.