Saturday night we kicked off the 4th year of the Black Male Initiative. This program has achieved national attention as an example of how to engage men on campus.

Last year we received a $150,000 grant from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation to enhance our program. Our results so far have been good, with an increase in both retention and graduation rates for men (men were actually higher than women for the 2002 cohort group).

We always start on opening weekend with an event. Past speakers were Kevin Powell, Byron Hurt, Rani "Tha Hip Hop Doc" Whitfield, and this year, Rev. Run.

Rev. Run spoke about lots of issues, including hip hop (he thinks Jay-Z is the best), God and spirituality, marriage (we have to make it sexy so young brothers pursue it), and motivation.

Well over 100 guys came out, including some brothers from UAPB. Afterwards, we had a good reception and Rev. Run signed copies of his book.

A very cool night (and a highlight for me)

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Our speaker, Elder Bernice King

Miss PSC, Felicia White, Senior, San Antonio

Chosen Generation Gospel Choir

Ariel Flood, Senior, Chicago

Alex Brown, Senior, Fresno CA

Cessily Martre, Junior, Memphis

Crissy Pullom, Senior, Birmingham

Elder Bernice King

Her message, "A reordering of priorities"

A presentation from the Arkansas Martin Luther King, Jr. Commission

Student pledge, led by SGA President Gerald Thomas, Junior, Chicago

Today was a very busy day. We started with the formal ribbon cutting of our new, 60 bed residential suites.

We had remarks from our board chair, Bob Birch.

Then comments from the construction company, Alessi Keyes, and the architects, Williams and Dean.

I shared how we have increased our housing capacity on campus by 30% in two years, and STILL have students in an off campus hotel.

And we concluded with our ribbon cutting.

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Yesterday we had our opening of the year day of prayer. As always, a diverse group of students, faculty and staff participated.

There were prayers by students, faculty and staff, along with songs.

We closed with a final prayer by our chaplain, Rev. Ronnie Miller-Yow.

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Last night a reception was held for the international students. Over the past few years we have really worked to expand the geographic diversity of the campus, and our international students have really been very active.

For example, in this year's freshman class, outside of Arkansas, our top two feeder areas are Illinois and then the Bahamas. We are part of a consortium with the government of Rwanda which brings 2 Rwandan students to campus each year. We now have six. We also have students from Jamaica, Zimbabwe, and China. Hopefully we will open new territories in the future.

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Today we hosted a reception for our freshmen who are in the honors program. A total of 31 students will participate this year.

They all had to do a video introduction. This is a technique I learned about last year to learn their names quickly. My wife and I teach the 2 honors freshman colloquia classes, and we will know their names and where they're from before the first class on Tuesday.

After that they had a chance to visit with each other, and with the senior leadership of the college.

Many of them used the time to interact with faculty in their major areas, and others met many of the staff members.

This was a lot of fun for everyone, and a good activity for the second day of the academic year.

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Prior to our gift announcement, we started our faculty-staff institute with a presentation by Dr. John S. Wilson, executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs. He helped us discuss institutional infrastructure for maintaining best practices.

As always, Dr. Wilson was profound and gave me new ideas to consider. One of the key ideas was prestige versus reputation, and we should be working toward prestige where we drive the market.

Another idea is to prioritize permanence, where developing a strong enough endowment allows the president to be creative without worrying about resources. The goal should be for us to have an endowment to expense ratio that is at least 5. Only one HBCU is close to this (Spelman), so we all have lots of work to do.

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New students moved in today. Here are some scenes from move in and the new beginnings ceremony.