When deciding which college to attend, Jamila Gittens, SEAS BS '09, and Charles Basden Jr., CCAS BA '08, MPA '11, were looking for similar things. They both chose GW, and ultimately, they found each other.
“I immediately loved the atmosphere, the diversity, and being in a city,” Jamila says, recalling her impressions of GW after going on a college tour. Growing up outside of New York City in nearby Rockland County, she says D.C. seemed more manageable. “I saw myself there, and it’s a good school.”
Charles, who hailed from Newark, New Jersey, felt the same way, adding that he didn’t want a traditional liberal arts school; he wanted an urban environment where he could work alongside the movers and shakers of the world. “GW afforded that opportunity,” says Charles.
Charles was a sophomore when Jamila arrived, and he was helping with the Welcome Week events for her class when they met. “I remember thinking she was really good looking, and she had a beautiful smile,” laughs Charles.
“We were friends for a while; we didn’t start dating until his senior year, my junior year. But we were both really involved in cultural organizations, and we hung out at the Multicultural Student Services Center, where we participated in a lot of activities,” says Jamila.
“We grew to really like and understand each other,” adds Charles.
[caption id="attachment_14753" align="alignright" width="300"] Charles and Jamila, newly engaged.[/caption]
Charles served as co-president of the Black Student Union in his senior year, and at that time there were a lot of student-led activism going on around the country. He was thrust into the spotlight during the media coverage on campus and recalls being inspired by students of different backgrounds and “their impressive show of solidarity.”
“I also got to see Jamila, as president of National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), express her concerns about what was going on,” says Charles, adding that he always wants to be around people who are attuned to what’s going on and take action, and Jamila is one of those people.
“You meet all types of people and see things that you can only see at GW,” says Charles, before listing all the influential people he met as a student, including the former Mayor of D.C Anthony Williams., DC area radio host “Tigger,” actor Jamie Foxx, civil rights activist Julian Bond, and former Vice President Joe Biden – not once, but twice.
“When President Barack Obama got elected, a lot of students ran to the White House. You can’t just do that any university,” Jamila says. “And we got to go to his inauguration together.”
After Charles graduated, he immediately started a full-time job at GW and began working on a master’s degree. A year later, Jamila graduated and moved back to New York for graduate school.
[caption id="attachment_14754" align="alignleft" width="300"] Jamila and Charles on their wedding day in 2013.[/caption]
But they stayed together long distance, and a few years later in 2013, they got married – and the wedding party was full of GW friends. For their one year anniversary, the Basdens added their red cockapoo puppy, named Faith, to their young family. The couple lived in Alexandria, Virginia, until 2016, when they bought a house in Charles’s hometown of Newark.
Today, Charles still works in higher education, but now he’s the senior academic program coordinator and lead recruiter for Rutgers’s Graduate School of Education. Jamila is an associate scientist at PTC Therapeutics, where she performs pre-clinical studies focusing on finding treatment options for oncology patients.
“We appreciate the relationships we developed and life skills we learned at GW,” says Charles, who helped plan his 10-year reunion last year.
He adds that they, their relationship, and the connections to others and GW have only continued to grow over last decade.
“We have very positive memories, and we were able to grow as two individuals that became one. We recognize that we had front row seats in an important chapter of American history while in Washington D.C., and know that’s uniquely because of our shared experience at GW. ”
-Christine Cole