A'Kena LongBenton, ABD, EdS
Owner/Educational Consultant
December 3, 2021
Owner/Educational Consultant
December 3, 2021
Biography
At the young age of 20, A’Kena LongBenton began substitute teaching at University Public School (UPS), Michigan’s first charter school. She was only six years younger than her students, but garnered their respect from day one. At UPS, A’Kena was a two-time recipient of the technology educator of the month award.
At 25 years old, A’Kena became one of the youngest college instructors at Wayne State University—teaching students more than twice her age.
From Wayne State University, A'Kena has earned an education specialist certificate in K12 educational technology, a master's degree in speech communication, and a bachelor's degree in secondary education with a professional teaching certificate in educational technology, English, and speech.
Additionally, earned from Wayne State, A'Kena has two post-master's teaching certificates in college/university teaching and online teaching. Last, A’Kena is a PhD candidate at Wayne State University in learning design and technology with a double minor in speech communication and reading, language, and literature. She has completed all of her doctoral coursework, passed both her oral and written qualifying exams, and will soon be collecting data for her dissertation research.
A'Kena has nearly three decades of teaching experience at the secondary and/or collegiate level. She is a former K8 school principal, interim curriculum director, and acting superintendent, grant writer, researcher for the State of Michigan Department of Education, and a ghost writer for a Pontiac mayor’s State of the City Address.
Starting in the academic 2021-22 year, A’Kena accepted a position with Emporia State University in The Teachers College as their IDT program coordinator for teacher preparation, instructor, and graduate advisor in the instructional design and technology department.
Also, A’Kena is a distance learning certified senior communication professor with Wayne County Community College and online adjunct faculty member with Rochester University.
In spring/summer 2021, A’Kena was awarded three honorary doctorate degrees from NC Theological Seminary, Prowess University, and Trinity College in divinity, educational planning and management, and literature, respectively. Also, she was the recipient of a near six-figure Perkins Career and Technical Education Grant via Macomb Community College (MCC) where she served as the principal investigator/ project director. In this role, she offered virtual instructional design services with her consulting team of Teaching for Lifelong Change to MCC’s engineering and advanced technology department.
In 2020, she earned seven graduate certificates from Harvard University medical school and graduate school of education. From Cornell University, she has earned three graduate certificates from its college of veterinary medicine and three scripture and theology certificates from Dallas Theological Seminary. Additionally, in 2020, A’Kena completed her chaplaincy certification program. Moreover, A’Kena was a finalist for Oakland Together COVID-19 safety video contest in Oakland County, MI. Further, she won the judges choice award and second place community popular vote for her submitted City of Pontiac’s public service announcement video.
Previously, she was the lead tutor trainer with Oakland Literacy Council to combat adult illiteracy and taught for Baker College, Central Michigan University, Oakland Community College, University of Detroit, and Wayne State University.
Yet, of all of her professional experiences, her most humbling one was teaching English abroad in China to Chinese professors. Also, since 1999, A'Kena has given over a quarter of $1M to over forty organizations.
Formerly, she served as MCC’s external consultant/instructional designer at where she instructed TACOM former soldiers, MIOSHA State of Michigan workers, and others on presentational creation and delivery techniques and instructional design theory and concepts. She has also done course development projects for Ford Motor Company and video editing for General Motors.
Also, at MCC, A’Kena provided leadership to engineering faculty on content, technology, and tools to support the National STEM Consortium and U.S. Department of Labor’s curricula that she co-edited, which was adopted by Carnegie Mellon and Stanford Universities and recognized by President Barack Obama’s Executive Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Civically, Mrs. LongBenton earned the Spirit of Detroit award, from a Detroit mayor and City Council, to honor her commitment to Detroit children and families. Also, within her civic duties, A’Kena is the former board president of Great Lakes Academy, a local charter school in Pontiac, MI. As board president, she was fiscally responsible for a $6M budget and creating school policies. Further, A’Kena has co-chaired two non-profit organizations, Energize the Vote and Cranbrook HUB Alumni Association where she encouraged citizens to become politically involved and the importance of volunteerism, respectively. Also, because A'Kena matriculated through college primarily via scholarships, she founded The A'Kena Long Book Scholarship where she has awarded over twenty underprivileged college bound students with scholarships to purchase their college textbooks and finance other college expenses. This scholarship was founded on the principle: "to whom much is given, much is required."
Aside from A’Kena’s vast educational credentials, her greatest joy is ministering the gospel, which she has done for over 16 years. She is a licensed and ordained minister and regularly shares the Word of God in the Greater Midwest region. A’Kena partners with regional Michigan churches to provide chastity, financial literacy, and marriage (with her ministering husband) workshops. She officiates funerals and weddings and teaches adult Sunday School and youth church. A’Kena was the minister of education and former drama, singles, and youth ministries department head. Additionally, she, along with two other parishioners, completed a challenge to read the entire Bible in a single year, which was a huge feat!
Teaching for Lifelong Change, her educational consulting service, offers 50+ instructional videos for various academic disciplines, tutorial sessions, creative reading products, proofreading and publishing services, MEAP workshops, and technology application and video production training for teachers, tutors, students, and parents. Teamed up with other educated professionals, an ACT workshop for college bound students is offered as well. A’Kena is committed to changing the face of education as she invents reading products and designs creative technologically-effective content area curricula. Mrs. LongBenton’s reading products and teaching strategies have yielded a 30% increase on students' ACT scores and a 10% increase beyond the State’s average on the MEAP writing section.
Her publications include: Perfecting Public Speaking, Reading Wheel, Survival via Creative Writing: Remembering the Power of Story, Teaching and Learning in China, Towards a Philosophy or Effective Mentorship for New Professionals in Composition and Language Arts, Web 2.0 Teaching and Learning Tools, What’s the Sense in Reading?, and YUP!: A Young Urban Professional Speaks. Moreover, three of the author’s abstract reflections, Does Cultural Ignorance Affect Faculty Evaluations?, A Minority among Minorities: Instructors—The Least Considered College Entity, and The Reality of Being Young, Black, and Educated were published in a college textbook that is being used at regional universities. Also, Educators Unknowingly Aiding and Abetting Illiterate Students, Life Lessons from a YUPPIE, and 25 Rules of Basic Writing, and are pending publication.
On a personal note, A’Kena has been wed to Larry Benton for 17+ years who has devotedly been her best friend of 27+ years. Also, as the youngest of nine children, she was the first to earn a four-year college degree and inspired her older siblings to begin or complete their college degree programs.