Xavier University’s new St. Katharine Drexel Chapel is designed with mystery in mind. The new $10 million dollar chapel juts like the Rock of Gibraltar toward the Pontchartrain Expressway. Thousands of commuters have watched it grow at the northeast edge of the campus for the past two years. The gem-like, faceted design is the work of César Pelli, a Connecticut-based international architecture star.
For several years Pelli’s Petronas Towers, a pair of 88-story art deco buildings in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, were the world’s tallest buildings. The sky-scraping scalloped columns, conjoined by an aerial bridge, remain an international architectural icon.
The Drexel Chapel, which is Pelli’s first-ever church design, is scheduled to be dedicated on Oct. 6 with an invitation-only Mass celebrated by Archbishop Gregory Aymond, followed by a week of Masses, tours and concerts that are open to the public.
On a recent visit to the almost-complete structure, a squad of landscapers swarmed around the chapel, quilting together squares of sod. Elsewhere, inscriptions were being sandblasted into the chapel’s stone exterior and melodies soared from the church organ as it was tested for sound. Despite the last-minute bustle, David Coon, the member of Pelli’s architectural team responsible for the construction of the chapel, found time to lead a tour.
At every step, Coon revealed elements of the logic behind the design that, he said, was guided largely by Pelli’s associate Mitchell Hirsch. read more…
Xavier University of Louisiana’s SiMon Franklin and Carmen Holcombe have been selected to the All-Gulf Coast Athletic Conference preseason women’s basketball team by the GCAC head coaches. The conference announced the team Wednesday.
Franklin, a 5-foot-7 senior guard from Baton Rouge, La., and a graduate of St. Joseph’s Academy, was All-GCAC in 2011-12 and the MVP of the GCAC Tournament, which Xavier won 58-50 against Talladega. Franklin led the Gold Nuggets with 10 points per game. She shot 46 percent from the floor and had 57 assists and 70 steals.
Holcombe, a 5-11 junior forward from Plano, Texas, and a graduate of Plano West High School, averaged 5.1 points and 4.2 rebounds as a sophomore. She was the Nuggets’ No. 6 scorer and No. 3 rebounder. Holcombe had 11 points and eight rebounds at Georgetown (Ky.) in Xavier’s come-from-behind 79-76 victory.
Xavier is one of three schools with two preseason All-GCAC players. Talladega and SUNO are the other schools. read more…
Chasidy Privett, a member of the Alabama A&M University board of trustees, has resigned her position.
The school announced today it is soliciting nominations to replace Privett, who joined the board in 2010. Her term was set to expire in 2016.
According to the school’s new trustee nomination process adopted last year, nominees will be accepted to fill Privett’s position. Privett, who lived in Cullman, served as the representative from the 4th Congressional District.
She is the president and CEO of Action Technologies Defense Group in Huntsville. more info…
Through five games, Mason, a former Tennessee Mr. Football and University of Kentucky signee, has completed 75 of 109 attempts for 960 yards and nine touchdowns to lead the conference in passing, passing efficiency and total offense. He’s also tied with Alabama State running back Isaiah Crowell, a Georgia transfer, with six rushing touchdowns.
“He’s the MVP of the conference so far based on his play,” Mississippi Valley State coach Karl Morgan, during Monday’s SWAC coaches teleconference.
The Bulldogs, undefeated at 5-0, will travel to face Morgan’s Delta Devils (1-3, 1-1) Saturday at 2 p.m. The Delta Devils had a bye week following a loss 45-14 loss to Northwestern State (La.) on Sept. 22nd.
Mason’s three-touchdown performance was his third in as many weeks. Up to this point, he hasn’t limited turnovers but eliminated them. He’s yet to throw an interception, a feat no other full-time starter in the conference can lay claim to. read more…
Student leaders catapulted the crowd into the Rattler chant to commit to end hazing
Thousands of students at Florida A&M University participated in an interactive town hall meeting September 20th – the nation’s largest public meeting of its kind — addressing hazing in the campus community. This town hall serves as a continuation of the anti-hazing efforts since Interim President Doctor Larry Robinson began his tenure.
Although more than 2,000 students were in attendance, only 300 students utilized remote clickers to participate in a question-and-answer exercise with a panel of professionals. At the end of the event, the panel asked students: “Will you report hazing if you see it happening on campus?” The results showed 68% of students would not report hazing to the university or to the police.
The panelists reiterated to students that hazing is a criminal offense and punishable by conviction in the state of Florida. Most of the event was a discussion between the students and panelists. Students posted questions on Twitter using “#FAMUTownHall.” The panel of professionals included authors, professors, alumni, and representation from the FAMU Student Government Association.
One of the most out spoken panelists was Doctor Na’im Akbar, a clinical psychologist who has lectured at more than 300 universities about personality development of African-American people. “We forget the fact we just got off the plantation,” says Akbar, addressing the student body, “…hazing has no value in whatever you are trying to do.” Akbar concludes by explaining that the media doesn’t define FAMU; the students do and need to represent the school with respect.
FAMU launched www.StopHazingAtFAMU.com a few weeks ago, yet some students do not feel it has been successful in combating hazing in campus organizations.
“We need more action instead of words,” said music student Alyssa Anderson who sat in the front row at the town hall meeting, “The website is a good because it can be utilized anonymously, but we have all these meetings – let’s have workshops with more scenarios and realistic solutions to end hazing.”
Even among all of the discussions online and off, some questions were still left unanswered by the panel, which left Anderson unclearon the definition of hazing.
“You’d think [after] the death of one of our fellow Rattler’s [Robert Champion], students would realize that this so-called culture is not acceptable. I wish the panel would have clarified on hazing. If someone agrees to be hazed, has an opportunity to report it, but doesn’t, how is that justified?”
Anderson continues, “Some people are contaminated, like a parasite. They’re so used to hazing and that lifestyle in that organization. Change is going to take a while.”
All students were also asked to sign the anti-hazing pledge at the town hall meeting. Students will be unable to register for classes in the Spring 2013 semester unless they have signed the pledge.
The Marching 100 band tweeted during the event saying: “We’re in attendance at the FAMU Town Hall. We commit to end hazing.” This gathered a lot of applause from the crowd.
FAMU Board of Trustees is still in search of a new president. BOT hopes to secure a president by July 2013. The selection process will include input from the university community through various forums and meetings.
With the pervasive, wandering, omnipotent minds of today’s young adult populace, it is imperative not to assume anyone’s political party. Without surprise, not everyone in the black community is democratic, and furthermore, not everyone is voting for President Obama in the re-elections.
What many students do not recognize or inquire about is the “why” behind such partiality. One of the biggest problems facing the re-elections is lack of knowledge about what is going on, on both parties sides: what they have accomplished, what they wish to accomplish, and international relations are a few topics that black college students have not educated themselves on.
As a result, young voters many times have little to no information about why they are voting for a particular party. This includes not only Mitt Romney in the Republican Party, but also the voters that support President Obama.
For the black students voting for Romney specifically, I believe it is from misinformation and frustration with the Democratic Party, in which their vote has moved to that of the republicans. From the black republican voters whom I have encountered on campus, I have been given a variety of responses.
One of these is that the reason for their political party obligation lies with their family. Unfortunately, for both young democratic and republican voters, after their first registration, their vote tends to be in alignment with that of their parents or family with no other reasoning behind the support of their particular parties.
Secondly, many black republicans belittle the work of the Democratic Party stating, “they have not achieved enough,” “that President Obama was not true to his word while in the White House,” or merely, republicans are better.”
Simply put, the black republican supporters, whom specifically are students, have been misinformed about the political race. Their perspective on the prospective presidential candidates has been limited by family, political mistakes of the past, and lack of information.
As a powerful, upcoming generation, and an influential part of the political process, students, especially black students, need to understand our economic, social, and international standing, in order to justly choose the right candidate to lead our country.
Lincoln University Alumni Janelle Harris (Clutch Magazine) speaks on how A Different World was her insight into attending an HBCU.
Twenty-five years—that’s how long it’s been since the first episode of A Different World aired on NBC. The Internet’s been standardized, the skyscraper bang has been beaten into obscurity and stars have blazed across the fickle stage of celebrity and fizzled, remembered only through the randomness of reality shows and VH1’s I Love the 90s. But after 25 years, A Different World is still relevant, not only because TV One so graciously continues to breathe life into its syndicated reruns, but because it was the only show to paint a realistic picture, for an entire generation of kids, of what life is like on a black campus. Many of them were the first in their families to even have a shot at going to college and some went on to serve their four years in the hallowed halls of higher education. I was one of them.
A Different World was my window into post-secondary school autonomy and the wholeness of college life. I remember racing to get my homework done before 8 every Thursday so I could be an honorary Huxtable first and then, immediately thereafter, watch the episodic antics of Dwayne and Whitley, Kim and Jaleesa, Ron and Freddie. As a little kid struggling with the complexities of little hand/big hand time and decimal placement, campus life seemed so foreign and grown-up. The spontaneous step shows that broke out in front of The Pit, the deep, revealing classroom discussions about gender roles, AIDS and casual sex, the passionate, on-campus sociopolitical protests, the playful banter between the roommates and girls in the dorm, the occasional rap star cameo, and the guys, guys, guys—it all ruined me for anything else.
I applied to NYU just to say I got in and Temple because it was local, but I’m not even so sure I ever entertained much of anything but a black school. For six seasons, Hillman life had shaped my expectations and visions of the college experience. By the time my predominantly white high school years thankfully, finally, heaved their last few breaths, I was all set to enroll at Lincoln University, the first HBCU in the country and not completely unlike that fictional—but very realistic—Huxtable alma mater.
Shortly after graduating from Ohio’s Central State University in the spring, DeJuan Pratt moved to Chicago and enrolled in a masters program at Roosevelt University to further hone the “bright future” his mother said awaited him.
The 24-year-old had just texted his family three days ago to discuss a job they helped line up, Pratt’s mother said Wednesday from Columbus, Ohio. But work was the last thing on his mind, authorities said. Pratt was living it up in Las Vegas where Chicago Police said he used the credit cards of the new roommates he brutally murdered in West Ridge less than a month before.
“Chillin” at the pool at the Venetian Hotel, the dreadlocked Pratt allegedly boasted on his Facebook page Sunday. Pratt, who Cook County prosecutors said booked his Sin City flight with his victims’ stolen credit cards, was arrested for the double murder when he landed at O’Hare early Monday morning.
“I’m just floored,” Pratt’s mother said in disbelief when told Cook County Judge Edward Harmening ordered Pratt held without bail Wednesday for allegedly slaying former Kankakee County prosecutor Gary Brown, 64, and Chun Xiao Lee, 48.
“He has no history of violence. It doesn’t make sense. I’m wondering if someone set him up.” Read more…
WILBERFORCE — Central State University has received a $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to begin the groundwork for the school to become a competitive research institution.
The grant will bring together the expertise of several faculty members to develop a “sharable self-optimizing and cooperative control cyber sensors network platform” — which could be used, for example, to quickly alert police to a robbery based on video footage showing key behaviors that indicate suspicious activity, said Kimberly Kendricks, associate professor of mathematics at Central State.
A second application would bring together information from different sources to track environmental phenomenon, Kendricks said.
The grant is part of Central State’s effort to establish a Center for Research Excellence in Science and Technology or similar research center in two years.
“This research project will strengthen the research credentials of our university’s faculty, as well as the resources and facilities of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) departments,” Kendricks said.
The platform project brings together researchers at Central State who have been working independently, and along with Kendricks the project includes Yu Liang, assistant professor of computer science, and Xiaofang Wei, assistant professor of GIS, Remote Sensing.
“We can help each other’s research by collaborating,” Kendricks said.
Spike Lee ’79 didn’t come to Morehouse to study film. In fact, once he got to college, he had no idea what he wanted to study until he finally realized what he was passionate about.
“At the end of my sophomore year, my adviser told me to think long and hard about choosing a major over the summer, and I said, ‘Why?’ Lee said. “She said ‘because you have exhausted all of your electives.’ When I came back, I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker…I said I was going to do everything possible to become a filmmaker.”
That was just one of the stories Lee told during a two-hour visit to the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel where he met with students and talked about his new film, “Red Hook Summer.”
Hosted by David Wall Rice ’95 and Stephane Dunn, co-directors of the College’s new Cinema, Television and Emerging Media Studies program, the event was an interview and autograph session that also helped promote Lee’s latest “joint.”
The film, which is set in his beloved Brooklyn neighborhood, also has other Morehouse ties. The Morehouse College Glee Club, led by director David Morrow ’80, performed the movie’s final song. Many of the church members in the film are Morehouse and Spelman graduates. And music department chairman Uzee Brown ’72 composed and arranged three spirituals that were sang by the church’s choir.
“I’m really privileged to be involved in this,” said Brown, who also wrote and arranged “I’m Building Me a Home” for Lee’s 1988 film, “School Daze.” “Spike called me and asked very specifically, ‘Uzee, can you give me some arrangements that I can use as part of the congregational kind of presentation in the movie?’ So I said, ‘Sure.’”
While most of the talk was about the film, Lee also gave advice to students who filled the Chapel’s lobby and plaza. Mostly, he urged them to focus on what they wanted to do in school and in life.
“Hopefully, you have not chosen a major based on how much money you think you can make,” Lee said. “That’s a recipe for disaster. While you are here, you should be trying to find out what it is you love. That’s the whole thing about a liberal arts college – you can get exposed to everything here.” READMORE
Mrs. Ivanetta Davis, former First Lady at Tennessee State University, celebrates her 100th birthday June 19 during the Centennial Day Celebration. Davis will be honored during this year’s Homecoming 2012 as Grand Marshall. (photo by Rick DelaHaya, Department of Media Relations)
Ivanetta Davis’ tie to Tennessee State University stands out in a very unique way. Alumnae and former First Lady – all at the same time – seem like a rare feat. But if you think that’s a lot, add Grand Marshal.
Yes, Grand Marshal of TSU’s Centennial Homecoming parade. And, who better for the role than the former First Lady – who also celebrated her 100th birth anniversary (June 19) this year.
“I am honored to be asked to serve as the Homecoming Parade Grand Marshal,” Davis said. “Tennessee State University is my school and I love to serve in any way I can.”
Speaking in her home recently about Tennessee State University of the past and her role as the Centennial Homecoming Grand Marshal, the Centenarian spoke highly about the growth the University has achieved over the years.
“Tennessee State has grown for the better,” she said. “Back when my husband was president, not only did the school help to educate the children, but it got a lot of help from the churches and the community. They all came together to help the students.”
As a student, Davis entered Tennessee State University, then Tennessee A&I, in 1936 as an elementary education major. While attending the University, she met and fell in love with the then head football coach, Walter S. Davis, who would later become the second president of the University. The two later got married and had a son, Ivan, who currently works at TSU in the Health Services.
Not surprising, Davis, as the close confidante of her husband, was a major contributor to the tremendous growth the University experienced during Dr. Davis’ reign as president of Tennessee A&I. Together, they gave the school 25 years of service. READ FULL
They’re calling it an educational tour, but you might add that it’s a history lesson, as well. And it’s one in which you will have a chance to listen and touch some of the people who helped bring about a change in Nashville and American society.
“Education is important in terms of people understanding where they have come from and the possibilities for a brighter future,” Dick Barnett, who is spearheading this particular tour that deals with race, economics and social behavior, told me recently.
Barnett, now in his 70s, is Tennessee State University’s all-time leading basketball scorer and played on the school’s teams that won a record three NAIA championships from 1957 to 1959. He also played for 15 years in the NBA — one of those with the 1971 world champion New York Knicks.
With this being homecoming week at TSU — and a celebration of the school being open for 100 years — Barnett and a few teammates are coming back to Nashville to let the public know through newspaper articles, photographs and testimonies not only the greatness of their teams but what it was like to help integrate this city.
They also plan to discuss the challenges and benefits of education and the importance of passing the baton of history from one generation to another.
“We want young people, especially, and regardless of who they are and where they come from, to know that things have not always been the way they are now,” Barnett said. “When we were at Tennessee State in the late 1950s, we could not walk downtown and sit at the lunch counters.
“Things have changed dramatically, but we still have plenty of work to do to make life better for everyone. You shouldn’t just take things for granted.”
Barnett and his teammates, along with their coach, the late, great John B. McLendon, were determined to be winners in a segregated society. They felt they could compete with anyone, given the opportunity. It was also TSU’s president at the time, Walter S. Davis, who believed in seeing that his student-athletes received not only a good education but a strong athletic program.
McLendon, who died in October 1999, was the first black head coach of a professional basketball team. He attended the University of Kansas and was an undergraduate student under James A. Naismith, who invented the game.
The NCCU community notes with sadness the passing of Ruth Russell Williams, 78, an acclaimed North Carolina folk artist. A resident of Henderson, she died Friday at Durham Regional Hospital. Her work was showcased at the NCCU Art Museum in a 2009 exhibit, “Ruth Russell Williams: Master Storyteller.” When the exhibit opened, Museum Director Kenneth Rodgers described Ms. Williams as “one of North Carolina’s most original artists.”
Ruth Russell Williams was born in 1932 in the Vance County community of Townsville. Her parents were sharecroppers. At age 8, she began picking cotton to earn enough money to go to the State Fair. Later, her paintings would portray scenes from this early work and from many other childhood experiences, including memories of going to work with her grandmother to the home of a plantation owner. She developed her talent along a path that took her from these humble beginnings to beauty salon owner and cosmetologist to national recognition as a self-taught artist.
In 1948 she married Odell Russell and they had four children but would later divorce. In 1974 she married building contractor Samuel Williams. Initially drawn to ceramics, she taught ceramics at Vance-Granville Community College. When her children were mostly grown, she began painting, although she initially thought her paintings lacked merit. At an art exhibit at Kerr Lake in 1985, Williams was quite satisfied showing her work to laymen and women, but when she learned that North Carolina A & T art professor James McCoy was nearby, she grabbed her paintings and hid behind bushes, fearful of presenting her work before a professional. McCoy, however, immediately recognized Williams’ unique aesthetic sensibility. He told Williams that she was a gifted folk artist and predicted that she would one day become widely recognized. For the next two decades, Williams produced hundreds of paintings, each one telling a story of life as she saw it, in a simple, straightforward — and vividly colorful — way. READ FULL
Ever since Bowie State University freshman Alexis Simpson, 19, of District Heights was charged with fatally stabbing her roommate during an alleged dispute over an iPod last September, Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks said she has been unnerved.
She said it was that case, which is scheduled for trial Nov. 13, that drove her to create an event she hopes to hold annually to foster better self-esteem and anger management in the lives of girls and women.
The state’s attorney’s office will hold the Sisterhood Summit on Sept. 29 at Prince George’s Community College in Largo. It will feature guest speakers and organizations with backgrounds in conflict resolution.
“While [Simpson] is innocent until proven guilty, just the fact that a woman is dead and another college student is in prison is just disturbing to me,” Alsobrooks said. “Today, there is a lack of ability to connect on a very basic level. They don’t have human interaction and they’ve diminished human contact, and it’s affecting the ability to resolve conflict.”
According to crime statistics from the FBI, the number of assault cases among girl
ls in the United States rose 24 percent while the number among boys declined 4.1 percent from 1996 to 2005. According to a U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration study in 2009, one in four teenage girls have participated in a violent crime within the past year.
Judge Glenda Hatchett, a juvenile court judge and star of the nationally syndicated television show “Judge Hatchett,” will deliver a keynote speech to the more than 300 teens ages 13-18 expected to attend. As of Sept. 18, 175 teens had registered for the 8 a.m.-to-3 p.m. summit.
Alsobrooks said that unlike other summits for teen growth and wellness, this event will include partnering organizations from around the county including Sisters for Sisters and Big Brothers Big Sisters National Capital Area. The event’s largest sponsor is United Way. All will encourage attendees to join their mentorship programs and work on improving their character and personality. Alsobrooks said her goal is to reduce violence among teenage girls and end the culture of disrespect and lack of emotional control.
“If we talk and go home, we fail,” Alsobrooks said. “This is more about following up with them. That’s the whole component for this.”
Several notable local business leaders and media personalities will participate when Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) hosts an Entrepreneur Summit on Oct. 4 at 5 p.m. in the Albert H. Anderson Conference center on the WSSU Campus.
Sponsored by WSSU’s University College and Lifelong Learning’s Office of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions, the summit will focus on strategies for building a successful business. The speakers are successful entrepreneurs, whether as owners of small businesses, leaders of not-for-profit organizations, or media personalities whose entrepreneurship happens daily in the way they market their unique skills to find new opportunities.
Tracey McCain, WFMY 2 Good Morning Show field anchor, will serve as master of ceremonies. Speakers include: Skip Brown, First Community Bank Triad region president and founder of the former TriStone Community Bank; Algenon Cash, managing director at Wharton Gladden, a boutique real estate investment banking firm headquartered in Greensboro; Busta Brown, former WQMG radio personality; Joy Cook, director of strategic communications, Welfare Reform Liaison Project in Greensboro; John Davenport, civil engineer consultant and former NCDOT engineer; Andrew Dreyfuss, fund executive at Piedmont Angel Network (PAN), an early stage committed capital fund based in the Triad; Derwin Montgomery, Winston-Salem city councilman; Nadia Moffett, Miss North Carolina USA 2010 and an active leader in the state; and Michael Suggs, executive director of Goler Community Development Corporation and former marketing and government relations executive with RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company. Read More.
Citizens across America have different reasons to vote in the presidential election, students at Albany State University are no exception.
“Federal aid is one of the issues that for me as a student, is very big”, said ASU junior Brandon Nelson.
Other students say they’re concerned about the job market after they graduate.
The student government association is trying to make sure everyone on campus has a say in the November election. One way they’re doing this is by calling on members of the college community to get as many students registered to vote as possible.
“A lot of organizations on campus that students are drawn too; we try to get them involved. The staff members and the faculty members on campus, we communicate with them and have them communicate with their students in their classes to come out and register to vote,” said Kevius Bass of the Student Government Association.
On Monday they held a voter registration drive, and utilized social media to spread the word. read more…
Xavier University’s new St. Katharine Drexel Chapel is designed with mystery in mind. The new $10 million dollar chapel juts like the Rock of Gibraltar toward the Pontchartrain Expressway. Thousands of commuters have watched it grow at the northeast edge of the campus for the past two years. The gem-like, faceted design is the work of César Pelli, a Connecticut-based international architecture star.
