Achievement Runs in the Family for Dartmouth Triplets

L to R: Brittany, Ashley, and Courtney Henry, Dartmouth Class of 2007 

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education reports:

For the first time in the school’s 238-year history, this June Dartmouth College graduated its first set of triplets. The three graduates are African-American sisters from San Diego, California.

Ashley, Brittany, and Courtney Henry, age 21, are identical triplets. They are graduates of a Seventh Day Adventist school in California where they shared honors as valedictorians.

All three girls will return to San Diego and take a year off before beginning professional school. Ashley, a history major, is going to medical school. Brittany, who majored in religion at Dartmouth, will enter law school. Courtney graduated from Dartmouth with a degree in American history. She plans on a career in dentistry.

The College marked this unique occasion by offering Olivia Willis-Henry, the triplets’ mother a choice seat from which to enjoy the commencement exercises, beside Susan Wright, wife of the current president of Dartmouth.

Prior to Dartmouth, Ashley, Brittany, and Courtney attended a small Seventh-Day Adventist high school where the three shared valecdictorian honors.

Diversity and the opportunity to broaden their experiences was an important factor in the Henry sisters’ decision to matriculate at Dartmouth. Said Brittany, “I just felt that, before coming to Dartmouth I had a very sheltered outlook. I was surrounded only by other Seventh Day Adventists and didn’t get to mingle with other groups.”

Ashley echoes this sentiment, explaining that, I feel it is important to be exposed to a lot of different outlooks, a lot of diversity, people of different ethnicities, different religions and socio-economic groups, “Dartmouth is a place that lets you do that. It would have been a lot easier on our mother if we stayed in California, but she wanted us to have the opportunity to receive the best academic and social education we could get.”

All three women look forward to returning to the San Diego area. Family is important to the Henry sisters, and they are happy to be moving closer to their mother, described as a speech pathologist who is divorced from their father.

Posted by Ajuan Mance