Mel Steele Boston grew up in a single parent household in Matapan, a rough and gang-ruled section of Boston. His experiences as a young student at James P. Timilty Middle School were hazardous for his young life and development, as his mother struggled to work multiple jobs while keeping a close eye on her young son’s development. Mel credits the discovery of the Metco Program of Massachusetts for taking him away from the gang-infested environment of his neighborhood and exposing him to a diversity of cultures and values which changed his life. ”METCO stands for the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity. Founded in 1966 in Boston, Massachusetts…The program provides students of participating school districts the opportunity to experience the advantages of learning and working in a racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse setting.”

Decreasing racial isolation by attending high school at Westwood in the Boston suburbs, Mel expanded his horizons by becoming involved in sports, where he excelled at lacrosse and football, thus earning a scholarship to study at the University of Delaware. There Steele studied sociology, the discipline of human social relationships and institutions.

The University of Delaware’s motto is “Knowledge is the light of the mind”, and it was to UD that Mel Steele traveled on the athletic scholarship he earned though his efforts at Westwood High School, in Westwood, Massachusetts. Established in 1743, UD has more than 21,000 students at its campus in Newark studying under the Delaware yellow and blue. UD is a NCSS Division I school, with 21 varsity teams, and is the largest university in the state of Delaware.

UD has programs in engineering, science, business, and hospitality management, to name only a few, and is strong in chemistry and biochemistry, drawing from the historically strong presence of some of the nation’s chemical and pharmaceutical giants, DuPont and W.L. Gore and Associates. UD is known as a research university. Its original class of ten students included George Read, Thomas McKean, and James Smith, all three of whom would go on to sign the Declaration of Independence.

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