President Barack Obama, in a soaring commencement address on work, sacrifice and opportunity, told graduates of Morehouse College Sunday to seize the power of their example as black men graduating from college and use it to improve people’s lives.
Noting the Atlanta school’s mission to cultivate, not just educate, good men, Obama said graduates should not be so eager to join the chase for wealth and material things, but instead should remember where they came from and not “take your degree and get a fancy job and nice house and nice car and never look back.”
“So yes, go get that law degree. But if you do, ask yourself if the only option is to defend the rich and powerful, or if you can also find time to defend the powerless,” Obama declared. “Sure, go get your MBA, or start that business, we need black businesses out there. But ask yourself what broader purpose your business might serve, in putting people to work, or transforming a neighborhood.”
“The most successful CEOs I know didn’t start out intent on making money – rather, they had a vision of how their product or service would change things, and the money followed,” he said. For those headed to medical school, Obama said “make sure you heal folks in underserved communities who really need it, too.” He asked those headed to law school to think about defending the poor.
Posts tagged as “Education”
Gemar Mills’ (pictured) resume reads like someone who is much older. At 22 years old, he was already a high school math teacher at Newark’s Malcolm X Shabazz High School, eventually creating a 70 percent standardized test pass rate; by 25, he was the school’s department chair of Mathematics. Within a year of acquiring the position, Mills improved the math department’s functioning from 17 percent to 26 percent.
With his rapid progression, Mills was able to become the school’s principal at 29, in the 2011-12 school year.
But he had his work cut out for him. During the 2010-11 school year, students pulled the fire alarm 119 times, many academic rankings placed the school near the bottom, and only 19 percent of students were proficient in math, according to High School Proficiency Assessment testing.
Even the teachers had, had enough: only 75 percent of educators showed up to class on a daily basis. By school year’s end, only 20 students made honor roll; enrollment fell to 810 students, down from 1,200 two years prior.
Mills began turning things around by implementing a no-nonsense disciplinary plan. A dress code went in to effect, banning items such as leggings and cargo shorts; students were greeted by a metal detector; and a 20-minute convocation welcomed students back for the new year, addressing issues such as poor test scores and shootings.
And the results have been immediate: By the 2011-12 year, Shabazz’s overall language arts proficiency rose from 48 percent to 61 percent and math proficiency rose from 19 percent to 27 percent.
ATLANTA — This weekend will be a busy one for Dorian Joyner, Sr. Sunday morning, he will watch his oldest son graduate from Morehouse College. Joyner will have a front row seat for commencement. After all, he will be a fellow graduate himself.
Joyner started his Morehouse journey back in 1984, but never finished. Three years ago, he decided it was time to come back. By then his son, Dorian Joyner, Jr. was already a freshman. When the younger Joyner heard his father was coming back to Morehouse, he admits, it was a shock at first.
“I said, ‘oh, you’re coming back to visit some of your friends?’” he remembered. “And [Dorian Senior] said ‘no, I’m coming back to be a student.’ I said – can you repeat that?” While most kids come to college to get away from their parents, Dorian Junior says he never felt like he was under his father’s thumb.
“We used to have a support system. Sometimes he would come to my room to ask about a problem or a class or a professor to take,” he said. Daddy Dorian, who allows his son to call him by his first name on campus, said the two have their own friends and schedules, so their paths rarely intersect. But after three years of learning from and pushing each other, the two have a bond that goes deeper that father and son.
article by Blayne Alexander via thegrio.com
Graduation season is under way and students and their families are joined by a few special guests as they celebrate their achievement. Among them: President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, who are addressing students at several of the nation’s historically black colleges and universities at graduation ceremonies this year.
On Sunday, the president will make his way to Atlanta, Georgia to address the graduating class at Morehouse College — a landmark all-male school that once enrolled civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King at the age of 15.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and senior adviser to the president Valerie Jarrett are also participating in commencement exercises at HBCUs. So far, Secretary Vilsack has addressed graduates at Tuskegee University, where he also received an honorary degree. Meanwhile, Mrs. Obama delivered a speech at Bowie State University on Friday.
Aside from President Obama’s highly-anticipated arrival at Morehouse College in the coming days, Jarrett and Secretary Duncanare were expected to participate in commencement services at Clark Atlanta University and Morgan State University this weekend.
article by Lilly Workneh via thegrio.com
A 5-year-old Newark, NJ boy became a hero after he used quick thinking and A-B-C skills to save his father’s life last week.
The two were driving home from buying Nathaniel Dancy Jr. school shoes when Nathaniel Sr. suffered an aneurysm and stroke, making him violently ill, according to a report by New York’s NBC Channel 4 News. He was able to pull the car over, but then got out of the car, vomited, and became paralyzed by a seizure. That’s when Nathaniel Jr., who is in kindergarten, sprang into action, grabbing his dad’s phone and calling his grandmother.
“He said, ‘Come and help me and my daddy. We’re in trouble,’” Susan Hardy-Blackman told NBC New York. She asked him where they were, and, though her grandson was unable to read the sign on the store they were in front of, he spelled it for her: F-U-R-N-I-T-U-R-E. But she was still confused. And that prompted the young boy to be persistent well beyond his years.
“He said, ‘Grandma, use your active listening skills,’” she said. “‘Listen to the words that are coming out of my mouth.’” He gave her another clue, that they’d just gone through a tunnel, and Hardy-Blackman was able to go to them, where they were parked in front of a furniture store, and send an ambulance there, too.
Brett Baker, director of operations at Nathaniel’s North Star Academy, told Yahoo! Shine that young Nathaniel is “a very caring individual,” and that he was proud to know the school’s emphasis of core values “really helped him seize the moment, as it were.” Doctors say that Nathaniel Sr., who remains hospitalized, is lucky to be alive.
article by Beth Greenfield via shine.yahoo.com
Legendary rapper Chuck D will be a featured speaker at Adelphi University and will also receive an honorary doctorate degree during the school’s 117th graduation on May 19.
He actually attended the university from 1978 to 1984 and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and had a hand in expanding the school’s radio programming.
In an interview with Ebony magazine earlier this year, he spoke of his work with the university’s program.
“I always used to do a lot of hosting and I was on college radio in the early 80s. So I was always a part of something that wanted to break deejays and parties out,” he said. “And that was with Hank Shocklee and Spectrum [City] back on Long Island. What made me want to become a recording artist; I was the first artist that was repeatedly asked by a label to record with them. That label was Def Jam Records.”
He continues, “So I was the first recruited artist ever by them. I originally told them no, but a year later, I eventually said yes. It wasn’t like I sent someone a demo. I was feverishly requested to make records.”
article by Brittney M. Walker via eurweb.com
DAYTONA BEACH — As the lights went out and his fellow students settled into their dorms, Joshua Williams would store two duffel bags of belongings in a friend’s room and disappear into the darkness.
He would leave the secure surroundings of the Bethune-Cookman University campus and head across the International Speedway Boulevard bridge and walk, sometimes all night. In the early morning hours, he would sneak into the lobby at the Bronson Hall dorm and sleep a few hours on a couch as if he lived there.
“I would go down to the beach sometimes,” he recalled. “Sometimes I would just take any direction and get lost and try to find my way back — I would just walk.”
Williams, 23, who is graduated last Saturday with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, was homeless for most of his first three years at the school but too proud to tell anyone.
But just like on his nightly walks, he always found his way. He survived on handouts, slept in empty trucks or on a couch at the apartments of classmates who thought he just didn’t want to go home after a late-night study session.
Remembering the poverty, drug dealers and random shootings he’d seen growing up near Miami, he knew he was on the right path. At school, he would find family, a sense of purpose and even win the title of Mr. Bethune-Cookman University and become the first student to organize a scholarship — but first he had to find a place to sleep.
“Before the sun comes up, I would make sure I was somewhere to lay down,” Williams remembered. “I knew I was homeless, but I said to myself I’d rather be in Daytona homeless trying to go to school than ever go back to Miami.”
NO PLACE TO LIVE
Williams arrived at B-CU in the fall of 2008 with $3,000 he saved from working at a gas station in Miami. He knew it wasn’t enough but felt confident. Then he found out tuition, room and board ran about $10,000 a semester. Williams wasn’t about to let that stop him.
“I would go down to the beach sometimes,” he recalled. “Sometimes I would just take any direction and get lost and try to find my way back — I would just walk.”
Williams, 23, who is graduated last Saturday with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, was homeless for most of his first three years at the school but too proud to tell anyone.
But just like on his nightly walks, he always found his way. He survived on handouts, slept in empty trucks or on a couch at the apartments of classmates who thought he just didn’t want to go home after a late-night study session.
Remembering the poverty, drug dealers and random shootings he’d seen growing up near Miami, he knew he was on the right path. At school, he would find family, a sense of purpose and even win the title of Mr. Bethune-Cookman University and become the first student to organize a scholarship — but first he had to find a place to sleep.
“Before the sun comes up, I would make sure I was somewhere to lay down,” Williams remembered. “I knew I was homeless, but I said to myself I’d rather be in Daytona homeless trying to go to school than ever go back to Miami.”
NO PLACE TO LIVE
Williams arrived at B-CU in the fall of 2008 with $3,000 he saved from working at a gas station in Miami. He knew it wasn’t enough but felt confident. Then he found out tuition, room and board ran about $10,000 a semester. Williams wasn’t about to let that stop him.
The road to one of this country’s leading historically Black colleges was not a walk in the park for the girls; they worked hard to maintain their high grade point averages in high school. According to Kirstie Bonner, who spoke with WSB-TV, “Before we came to college, we prayed that we would keep 4.0′s all the way through, but I don’t think we ever really expected it.”
But apparently there is strength in numbers, and as sisters who have traveled along the same path, sharing the same educational goals for success, the young women seemed to fuel each other, as evidenced by their noteworthy standing at Spelman, “You can have strength together,” Kristie points out.
When the young women arrived at the Atlanta college, they said they really pushed themselves to the limit to maintain excellent grades, even making themselves physically ill. Eventually, both Kirstie and Kristie learned from their mistakes, self-corrected, and managed their college workload in a way that would not negatively affect their health.
But apparently there is strength in numbers, and as sisters who have traveled along the same path, sharing the same educational goals for success, the young women seemed to fuel each other, as evidenced by their noteworthy standing at Spelman, “You can have strength together,” Kristie points out.
When the young women arrived at the Atlanta college, they said they really pushed themselves to the limit to maintain excellent grades, even making themselves physically ill. Eventually, both Kirstie and Kristie learned from their mistakes, self-corrected, and managed their college workload in a way that would not negatively affect their health.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A year to the day after kicking off his victorious re-election campaign on this college campus, President Barack Obama returned to Ohio State University and told graduates that only through vigorous participation in their democracy can they right a poorly functioning government and break through relentless cynicism about the nation’s future.
“I dare you, Class of 2013, to do better. I dare you to dream bigger,” Obama said.
In a sunbaked stadium filled with more than 57,000 students, friends and relatives, Obama lamented an American political system that gets consumed by “small things” and works for the benefit of society’s elite. He called graduates to duty to “accomplish great things,” like rebuilding a still-feeble economy and fighting poverty and climate change.
“Only you can ultimately break that cycle. Only you can make sure the democracy you inherit is as good as we know it can be,” Obama told more than 10,000 cap-and-gown-clad graduates gathered for the rite of passage. “But it requires your dedicated, informed and engaged citizenship.”
The visit to Ohio State — the first of three commencement addresses Obama will give this season — was a homecoming of sorts for Obama, who has visited the campus five times over little more than a year, starting with his first official campaign rally here last May. He made many more stops elsewhere in Ohio as he and Republican Mitt Romney dueled for the Midwestern state which was pivotal to Obama’s victories in both 2008 and 2012.
Two short documentaries directed and produced by Barbara Rick about Daraja Academy in Kenya air back-to-back on PBS on May 9th, “Girls of Daraja” followed by “Schools of My Dreams.”
Girls of Daraja:
A boarding secondary school for Kenyan girls with top academic scores and exceptional leadership skills but no means to continue their education. The academy provides shelter, food, healthcare and counseling services which allows students to focus on their academic and personal potential, without being hindered by the everyday barriers of poverty.
School of My Dreams:
An engaging portrait of students of Daraja Academy, a free Kenyan boarding school for exceptional girls living in poverty. In their own words and art, Daraja’s first graduating class demonstrates how education is expanding their vision and unlocking their dreams. They commit to transforming their communities and the world. Watch the trailer below:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfHTRrk8FEc&w=560&h=315]Click here for more info about Daraja Academy and the films.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson
A boarding secondary school for Kenyan girls with top academic scores and exceptional leadership skills but no means to continue their education. The academy provides shelter, food, healthcare and counseling services which allows students to focus on their academic and personal potential, without being hindered by the everyday barriers of poverty.
School of My Dreams:
An engaging portrait of students of Daraja Academy, a free Kenyan boarding school for exceptional girls living in poverty. In their own words and art, Daraja’s first graduating class demonstrates how education is expanding their vision and unlocking their dreams. They commit to transforming their communities and the world. Watch the trailer below:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfHTRrk8FEc&w=560&h=315]Click here for more info about Daraja Academy and the films.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson