First Ever HBCU Hackathon Tour

Posted by Brittney Quarles
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Participating in a hackathon is a magical thing. It doesn’t matter if you’re a programmer, designer, marketer, or the person with all the ideas, everybody involved is motivated to put their heads together and create something awesome in an incredibly short amount of time. A hackathon can last anywhere from 24 hours to an entire weekend, and participants compete to create software, websites, and/or mobile apps. More importantly, participants learn how to communicate, think analytically, and solve problems—skills they can use if or when they decide to take their idea beyond the competition. Hackathon

Unfortunately, many African-American students are not familiar with hackathons, and likely have never step foot in one. It’s that very reason Black Founders, a San Francisco-based organization dedicated to promoting diversity in the technology industry, created a one-day hackathon event entitled HBCUHacks to raise awareness about hacking on historically black colleges and universities.

The first HBCUHacks event took place in Atlanta at Hypepotamus, an entrepreneurial startup and collaboration facility, on Feb. 8-9. Black Founders reached out to all the Atlanta University Center students, which include Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Clark Atlanta University, to participate.

The tour’s goal is to introduce students to what a hackathon is, get them to come up with several innovative ideas, split up into teams, create a product and pitch the product to win cash and prizes. Additionally, students will be introduced to local entrepreneurs and network with sponsors for possible internships and job opportunities.

Read the full article here

Exciting Guests for our 2/12 HBCU Buzz Show!

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If you haven’t tune into our very own radio show yet, you’re truly missing out.

This Tuesday on the HBCU Buzz Show, we’re bringing two new and amazing guests, bringing some quality information that you need to know.

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Our first guest is artist LaShawnda Crowe Storm of Indianapolis, IN. LaShawnda will be speaking on her unique and note-worthy project, The Lynch Quilts Project.

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The Lynch Quilts Project is a community-based effort meant to explore the history of lynching and consequences of racial violence. Along with several other women, Lashawnda has taken a post card of the only surviving image to date of the lynching of a Black woman into a quilt.

Visit TheLynchQuiltProject.com website to learn how you can take part.

Featured in ClutchMag Online

 

 

Our second guest is Ms.  Jeanette Hordge, the 25-year old Founder & CEO of DASH Coordinating & Marketing, LLC based in Washington, D.C

Jeanette Hordge

DASH Coordinating & Marketing, LLC is comprised of a team of dedicated marketing and design professionals. DASH works with a staff of passionate in-house Marketing Analysts, Event Planners, Freelance Writers and Marketing Researchers to bring our marketing concepts into action for our clients! We offer services in web development, CMS (Content Management Services), E-marketing, Social Media, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Targeted Marketing, Social Marketing, Graphic Design and Event Planning & Promotion.

 

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To hear these exciting guests tomorrow LIVE and to check out all past shows go to the Buzz Show website and follow us on Twitter.

UPDATE: Check out this episode of The HBCU Buzz Show now at: http://blis.fm/hbcu-buzz/18-the-motivation/

How fashion is actually just a bunch of math

Posted by Tommy G. Meade Jr.
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“Fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions.” – Coco Chanel

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder — but a good mathematician would tell you that beauty lies in a ratio known as the Divine Proportion. Phi (ɸ), the 21st letter of the Greek alphabet, helps explain this proportion. While phi is widely accepted as a fraternity or sorority symbol, in math it represents an irrational constant number. (To those who haven’t taken math in a while, an irrational number is one with an infinite number of digits after the decimal place. You might recall the number Pi (π) is one such number.)

Phi helps explain the ratio obtained when an area is split into two segments. The first is a square (with equal height and width); the second is a rectangle (with the same width). See illustration below.

This illustration shows the equivalence ɸ/1 = 1/ ɸ-1, so ɸ is approximately 1.618. (Cross multiply, to get the quadratic equation ɸ2 – ɸ – 1 = 0. Solve from there.) This is the relationship known as the Divine Proportion, but has also been given many other names including the Golden Ratio and the Golden Mean.

The area, pronounced “fee,” is considered the building block of the Great Pyramids in Egypt, as well as the Parthenon in Greece. History proves architects have deliberately used phi in their designs. It has not yet been proven why this ratio is desired, but it has been proven that it’s aesthetically pleasing. tumblr_luyyb1W1vv1r0kkgko1_500

If fashion is indeed architecture, as Chanel suggests, why don’t couturiers use the same proportions — phi to be specific — that architects use in their designs?

Some analysts believe Coco Chanel did use phi in her designs. She claimed her revolutionary skirt length was meant to cover knees, a part of the human anatomy she openly disliked, when in reality the proportions of her clothes were mathematically planned around phi.

“All of the great fashion couturiers used the Divine Proportion, perhaps by instinct,” Antonio Gonzalez de Cosio, fashion editor and author, told USA TODAY College in an email. Take for example, “Balenciaga with his architectonical designs [or] Dior creating his new look with very small waist lines in proportion to the body.” Couture is about clothes with “harmony of form and of balance.”

Read more at USA Today College.

Gun Violence is a national issue for the black community

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“Violence brings only temporary victories; violence, by creating many more social problems than it solves, never brings permanent peace. We talk passionately about peace, and at the same time we assiduously prepare for war. We make our fervent pleas for the high road of justice, and then we tread unflinchingly the low road of injustice. —  Strength to Love, Martin Luther King Jr.

The state of Illinois no longer lead the death-toll of African-Americans; a new study shows that Missouri’s populace is home to the most deaths in the black community, followed by Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.

Executive director of the Violence Policy Center, Josh Sugarmann, who co-authored the study mentioned, said, “Across the nation this is a long-ignored public health crisis that is devastating black teens and adults, their families, and the communities where they live.”

According to the study, Missouri has an African American homicide rate of 34.86 per 100,000 black residents, far greater than the national average of just 4.42 per 100,000. And over 83 percent of the victims were killed with firearms.

This evidence tells how gun violence continues to be a national problem in the black community. But what can you and I do to help?

After the bombing on 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, Sunday, September 15, 1963 that killed for black girls, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. took upon the challenge to awake every citizen in America about the seriousness of gun violence.

“We must be concerned not merely about who murdered them,” King said. “But about the system, the way of life, and the philosophy which produced the murders.”

During this time of need, King’s principles of nonviolence may help:

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1.      Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.

Embracing nonviolence does not make one a coward, it portrays an assertive will power for what is right.

2.      Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.

Nonviolence is a holistic approach to eliminating hatred in the most hateful nation. Thus, it seeks to gain understanding from people who are confused on a perplex issue.

3.      Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not just people

This tool, nonviolence, should be used as a catalyst to exclude injustice and not exclude individuals for initiating what they think is right. It seeks to attack thoughts rather than bodies.

4.      Nonviolence holds that voluntary suffering can educate and transform.

Suffering is something that is difficult to do, however, it serves as a purpose to teach and change the hearts of people who perpetuate injustice.

5.      Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate

Love revives the community and genuine love is what the community needs anyway. All life is inter-related, thus, if we were to have hatred for our neighbor, we have hatred for ourselves.

6.      Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.

Justice, from a nonviolent lens, is seen as inevitable.

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These infallible tips that Dr. King left in history will establish a nation in which nonviolence is second-nature.

Whether obtained via public policy, communal church involvement, conversations, educating younger people on nonviolence from elementary school and into college, fund advocacy organizations and act rapidly, nonviolence in today’s society is imperative.

Magic Johnson at Howard University Hospital

Posted by Brittney Quarles
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Magic JohnsonEarvin “Magic” Johnson, Hall of Fame basketball player turned multi-million dollar entrepreneur, will be at Howard University Hospital from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Feb. 7 to talk about his transformation from basketball to business and how the stigma of being HIV-positive affects him and others.

Johnson, a member of the NBA Hall of Fame, a three-time NBA MVP, winner of five NBA Championships and voted one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History, is now an entrepreneur with a wide range of business interests that include sports, food service, broadcast, entertainment, airports and real estate.

During his talk in the hospital’s Towers Auditorium, he will address Howard University School of Business students about how he began his business career the keys to making smart entrepreneurial decisions.

In 2012, Johnson became a majority owner of the storied Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team.  He is the first African-American majority owner of a major league baseball franchise.  In 2006, he created a national contract food service with Sodexo USA called Sodexo-Magic.  One of his retail operations, the Magic Johnson Championship Sub, is in Howard University Hospital.

Johnson will talk with Howard University Hospital medical residents, other medical clinicians and human rights leaders about their role in eliminating the stigma associated with HIV.

Read Full Press Release Here

Clark Atlanta student takes advantage of social media to find jobs

Posted by Tommy G. Meade Jr.
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Check out Atlanta Journal-Constitution‘s Gracie Bonds piece about how a Clark Atlanta graduate used social media to leverage his career.

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His senior year at Clark Atlanta University was quickly approaching, and Kareem Taylor was starting to worry about his future.

Would he be able to land a job as a voice actor or would he end up back home with his parents like so many other college graduates? Better still, how could he let people know he had “the” voice?

Not having prior experience or a network to draw from, Taylor turned to the only contacts he had readily available to him, his Facebook friends.

“I decided to post a demo on Facebook, asking people to share it with their friends,” Taylor said recently.

In that moment, Taylor joined an ever-growing number of college students and employers who are using social media networks in the search for jobs and job candidates.

In fact, according to a 2012 Future Trends Survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 90.7 percent of respondents used Facebook in their job search.

Given the near-universal status of Facebook, which recently announced the launch of Graph Search to enhance users’ ability to navigate their connections, the study said, “it is expected that if a student were to think of using a social network in the job search, that student would first turn to the base social networking platform to see what it offered.”

Students are also turning to LinkedIn (40 percent) and Twitter (about 35 percent).

“LinkedIn, as a business networking platform, is clearly challenging Facebook for pre-eminent status among students as the networking platform to communicate with potential employers,” the study said.

Although nearly 66 percent of LinkedIn users felt that the service was effective compared to less than a quarter of users of other networking platforms, Taylor credits Facebook for helping him land employment with CNN.

Once he posted his demo on his Facebook page, Taylor said it caught the attention of CNN producer Danya Levine, who was already a Facebook friend. Levine invited him to the station, where he met her team.

“The head honcho said, ‘Let’s hear something,’” Taylor recalled. “I did something about CNN, and the whole room applauded.”

For the next few weeks, Taylor shadowed members of Levine’s team, editing tapes, meeting producers and learning everything at his disposal about the voice-over industry.

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Read the entire piece The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Howard Grad Looking to be the Next Mayor of Detroit

Posted by Brittney Quarles
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Detroit’s current mayor is 69. Andrae Townsel, who wants his job, is 28.

“I’ve hired my campaign managers, strategic media consultants and financial director,” the Howard University doctoral student tells Steve Neavling of Motor City Mukraker.

“I want to be mayor of Detroit so that I may restore faith and confidence in city government,” Townsel says.

Townsel knows he’s an underdog. But with various degrees from Howard University, a successful college football career and a graduate of Cass Tech High School, Townsel thrives on challenges.

“I went away to college so that I may specifically see how other cities are run,” the former college football player says. “I have been preparing to serve the citizens of Detroit ever since I left.”

The youngest candidate has a website at andraetownsel.com.

Article

First African-American Managing Editor at The Washington Post

Posted by Brittney Quarles
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Kevin MeridaWashington Post National editor Kevin Merida is ascending to the managing editor spot vacated last month by Liz Spayd, according to an announcement by the paper. With Merida’s promotion, the Post is getting its first African-American managing editor—and a reshuffle of portfolios for Merida and the paper’s other managing editor, John Temple.

“[Merida] is a journalist of remarkable accomplishment, but also a warm and caring colleague. And he has a record of proven leadership,” Executive EditorMartin Baron wrote in a morning memo to staff.

Merida, who joined the paper in 1993, grew up in Southeast Washington and Prince George’s County. He’s taking over many of the editorial departments originally assigned to  Temple when he joined the paper last year:

In his new position, Kevin will be able to easily and quickly deploy reporters and editors across all departments that report to him, including National, Foreign, Metro, Business, Sports, Investigations, Outlook, Style, Arts, Travel, Food, Local Living, Weekend/Going Out Guide, and the magazine.

Meanwhile, Temple’s now in charge of digital, in an arrangement that appears to be similar to what tech-focused Managing Editor Raju Narisetti handled before he left the paper in 2012.

Read full story here

Is Black History Month the problem?

Posted by Tommy G. Meade Jr.
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Columnist for The Root DC, Clinton Yates questions the effectiveness of Black History Month in his piece “Whither Black History Month? The problem isn’t the month, it’s the history.” Check out his account:

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…Back in 2005, Morgan Freeman famously declared the month as “ridiculous” during an interview on “60 Minutes.” Others have argued that, as a now-“post-racial” society, the month brings more division than integration. But the problem is not with the month, it’s with the history. At this point, with all the television ads, cultural programming and so forth that I see, February might as well be labeled “Ancient Black Civil Rights History Month.”

Black America’s history is more than just Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., obviously. But those are the names that I continually hear in the context of the celebration. I asked two educators what they thought about the month and how it could be updated.

Sharon Harley, associate professor of African American studies at the University of Maryland, thinks the move away from figures some might call “contributionists” is underway.

“Today, the programming and the scholarship focuses on women as well as men; prominent figures and the working class; the politics and culture of multiple groups of  people of African descent in the U.S. and globally,” Harley said. “In speeches and presentations [I make] to a wide range of people and groups, I am often impressed by the large number of people who turn out, and their enthusiasm. I discover that when people are exposed to the diversity, richness and complexity of black history and how it intersects with the history of whites, Native Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans in the U.S. and globally, they are often compelled to know.”

Which is all well and good, but revisiting the same old stories as a matter of course is not really progress. Leslie Hinkson, an assistant professor of sociology at Georgetown University, thinks the message might have been lost on some of her students, who, admittedly, are in a different class profile than most blacks in this country.

Read more from The Root DC.

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HBCU Buzz is the Leading Source of HBCU News, and Most influential brand in the HBCU Community. Like ‘the Buzz’ on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Clark Atlanta student arrested in shooting of Morehouse student

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Amir Obafemi, 21, was charged with felony aggravated assault and carrying a concealed weapon. (Fulton County Jail)A Clark Atlanta University student was arrested Saturday in the shooting of a Morehouse College student after a fight over a pickup basketball game, the college said.

The shooting occurred Friday at Samuel A. Archer Hall on the Morehouse campus. Amir Obafemi, 21, was booked into the Fulton County Jail. He was charged with felony aggravated assault and carrying a concealed weapon and was being held on $2,000 bond.

The shooting victim was identified as Morehouse student Cornileus Savage. He remained hospitalized at Grady Memorial Hospital in stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery, the college said.

As news of an arrest spread, Morehouse students were gathering Saturday for a campus anti-violence rally that one man, philosophy major Ian Moore, called “a gathering for peace.”

“I want people to still believe and still know that there are people who are promoting peace,” said Moore, a senior. He said organizers planned to walk along areas on campus where students have been the victims of violence and drop roses to commemorate them.

“It’s about spreading compassion, love, peace and happiness,” said junior Jalani Traxlar, a psychology major. “We shouldn’t celebrate someone’s arrest.”

Morehouse’s new president, John Silvanus Wilson Jr., said the rally was “very timely” given the level of gun violence in the city and around the country. He added that everyone is influenced by the issue.

The college’s 11th president said Morehouse and other schools in the Atlanta University Center must do all they can to make sure students are in a safe environment.

“If the students don’t feel safe, they don’t learn,” said Wilson, who had been executive director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Read more at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

HBCU Buzz is the Leading Source of HBCU News, and Most influential brand in the HBCU Community. Like ‘the Buzz’ on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Students Rally for More Funding of Maryland’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities

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Students held a rally at Maryland’s State House Monday hoping to get more funding for the state’s four historically black colleges and universities.

Sequoya Patterson went from Connecticut to Prince George’s County to attend Bowie State University because she knew it was the school for her.

“It was just a family home feel that I got from the campus and the different students I met while I was here,” she said.

It’s that same feeling that propelled her and thousands of other students who attend Maryland’s historically black colleges and universities to rally in Annapolis Monday.

“Even though this is a recession and all schools are struggling and making cuts, it doesn’t make sense that we are so underfunded,” Bowie State student Richard Lucas III said.

Read more at NBC Washington.

HBCU Buzz is the Leading Source of HBCU News, and Most influential brand in the HBCU Community. Like ‘the Buzz’ on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Medgar Evers College President Stepping Down

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Medgar Evers CollegeThe president of Medgar Evers College, the largely African-American college in Brooklyn, is resigning following a tumultuous tenure that included votes of no confidence from faculty.

William L. Pollard, who came to the college in 2009, will remain at Medgar Evers until a successor is named.

Medgar Evers College, named after the famed civil rights leader, is a part of the City University of New York and its chancellor, Matthew Goldstein, released a statement lauding Pollard.

“The president has worked diligently to focus this important institution in Central Brooklyn on student-centered goals and objectives, enhancing faculty instruction in the classroom, and on utilizing the new and modern campus facilities in creative and effective ways,” Goldstein said.

Between 2002 and 2007, Pollard served as president of the University of the District of Columbia, a historically Black college. Immediately before joining Medgar Evers College, he was vice president of the National Association for State Universities and Land Grant Colleges.

Read the full story here

Black History Month at ‘the real’ HU

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Martin Luther King Jr. At Hampton University circa 1957
Martin Luther King Jr. At Hampton University circa 1957

Check out some schedule events throughout the month of February for Black History Month at HU (Hampton University).

The month’s theme is “R.E.P.:” Remembering the Past, Embracing the Present and Preparing for the Future.

All events are free and open to the public. For more information about events contact the HU Office of Student Activities at 757.727.5691.

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Feb. 6

State of the Black Church Panel Discussion

7 p.m.

Student Center Ballroom

Free

Feb. 7

Black AIDS Day

10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Student Center Ballroom

Free

Black AIDS Day Panel Discussion

7:30 p.m.

Student Center Ballroom

Free

Feb. 8

Black Film “School Daze”

7 p.m.

Student Center Theater

Free

Read more.

Howard Lady Bison Continues Home Stand

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CCP_for_Savannah_StateThe Howard University women’s basketball team continues its home stand with a Monday night match up with South Carolina State University at 5:30 p.m. in Burr Gymnasium.

HU opened the four-game Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference event with a 53-41 win over Savannah State on Saturday, Feb. 2.

While senior Saadia Doyle led in points with 16, nationally ranked assist leader Cheyenne Curley-Payne distributed a season-high 12 assists, scored 11 points, pulled down a team-high eight rebounds and finished with three steals. read more…

Super Bowl — Beyoncé Runs Twitterverse

Posted by Tommy G. Meade Jr.
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slide_278487_2056601_freeWhen Beyoncé recorded ‘Run the World (Girls),’ she almost certainly spoke for herself.  

Grammy Award winner Beyoncé Knowles electrified fans the world over during her performance at NFL Super Bowl XLVII. The living legend simultaneously found time to rock social media, too.

Some of the funniest interpretations of the ‘Beyoncé Bowl’ came from Twitter.

Sports analyst Stephon A. Smith tweeted, “BEYONCE is a baaaaaaddddddd MAMA JAMA!!! If y’all don’t know, y’all better ask somebody.”

48 Laws of Power wrote, “Make your accomplishments seem effortless,” while another user quoted and said, “Beyoncé’s mantra.”

The most comical tweets came after the 34 minute power outrage.

One of my followers noted an “inside source” told her “Michelle found out her mic was muted so she shut down the lights.”

Another said, ‘the lights went off’ as soon as ‘Jay Z left the building.’

Super Bowl XLVII was yet another spectacle, and Beyoncé seem to have lived up to her celebrity after many critics denounced her solely as a ‘sub-par’ talent.

And in other news, the Baltimore Ravens won the halftime show, 34-31 against the San Francisco 49ers.

And the winner is…. Cutest HBCU Couple Contest Announced!

Posted by Brittney Quarles
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Are you the “Cutest HBCU Couple?”

 

We want to congratulate our 2013 Cutest HBCU Couple Winners John Wright and Ellen McKnight from Xavier University of Louisiana. Read their story:

Ellen & John

During my freshmen year at Xavier University of Louisiana I met a young woman at our campus ministry weekend retreat. I thought she was cute but said nothing at the time because I did not want to seem like the type of person who was trying to serenade girls by using Jesus as a means of persuasion. It turns out she thought I was cute too though. Neither one of us said much to each other the remainder of that semester but once she started following me on twitter I knew something was there. One day I tweeted “I’ll provide protection if you open up the door for me.” And then she sub-tweeted me by saying “The key is available whenever you want to pick it up.” I wasn’t really positive that she was talking about me at first so like a dummy I let that opportunity fly over my head again. Finally after the semester was over as well as freshmen year she messaged me on Facebook and we spoke briefly about how we would both enroll in summer school and the conversation ended with me giving her my cell phone number. On June 10, 2011 we started our relationship and on June 23, 2011 she agreed to be my girlfriend. Since we have been dating we make note to celebrate the 10th of every month and never let ourselves forget why we fell in love with one another. February will mark 20 months of our relationship and I could not be happier. She has helped encourage me to be a better student and a better person. My biggest concern is me wondering if I can do everything I can to make her happier.

John Wright
Classification: Junior
Major: Physics
Hometown: St. Louis, MO
School: Xavier University of Louisiana
After College Goals: Employment with Nasa’s Astrophysics program

Ellen McKnight
Classification: Junior
Major: Chemistry Pre-Pharm
Hometown: New Orleans, LA
School: Xavier University of Louisiana

After College Goals: Working in an impoverished community as a pharmacist.