No, not Latifah! (Only true hip-hop heads got the reference.

Our chapel today was a celebration of Miss PSC, Lauren Allen. Lauren is a sophomore presidential scholar from Kansas City. She took my honors orientation course last year and was definitely an excellent student- she killed in the debate we did against the other honors class. She aspires to become an attorney, and my wife is her mentor.

Men's basketball team

SGA

 

She was showered with gifts from the different clubs and organizations, and some campus offices. And of course the Kimbrough family gave a gift as well.

 

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James Carville kicked off Bless the Mic tonight in style, with over 600 in attendance- standing room only. I'll offer some more thoughts tomorrow, but we received excellent news coverage. Here are two TV station reports.

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http://www.todaysthv.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=72672&catid=2&GID=VO3IdBIjGukZCkM+iJpot1zao7KCapPMHLW/KAfRvZ0%3D

http://arkansasmatters.com/content/fulltext/news/?cid=114091

I attended an interesting program today. New students who signed up for mentors were able to go through a speed mentoring program if you will, where they spent one minute at a table with a faculty or staff member, and asked questions like "Why are you interested in mentorin?" "What do you do in your spare time?" and "What do you do to get to know your mentee?" We also had a list of questions to ask them, but I went off script (like "How would your best friend describe you if I asked him or her?"

So it was a creative event- I enjoyed getting to talk to some of the new students. I even picked up 3 more mentees (so 4 all together). We just needed more faculty and staff to be involved. I know folks are busy, but this is the key for small, liberal arts colleges.

 

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This past Thursday we held our opening convocation. The speaker was the Rev. Eugene Rivers from Boston. Rivers grew up in Chicago and Philadelphia, and was involved in gang activity. But he was able to leave that life and graduate from Harvard. In fact, his 2 children are at Harvard, as well as his wife doing a Ph.D.

He talked about how the chief engine of politics today is religion, and that since 9/11 there have been religious-based activists. As he spoke I thought about the number of times at the Republican convention I heard "radical Islamic terrorists." So he called this a post-secular reality.

He talked about coming full circle, with the civil rights movement beginning with the church, and that it was faith based. He argued that today we also need a faith-based leadership.

He was clear to say that the problems in Black America today are cultural, and that the denigration of hip hop is a reflection on the civil rights movement in that as people prospered, they left the neighborhoods and allowed single parents to try to raise kids on their own. Essentially, there was an absence of proper cultural supervision.

So he called for a new movement: the politics of the Spirit. He said that 50 years ago, we tried to get out of Egypt. Today, we have to get Egypt out of us.

 

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The evidence is clear. Almost 30% of black PhDs in the sciences over the past decade attended an HBCU as their undergraduate institution. 30% from schools that enroll about 12% of Black students.

http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/09/02/phds

 

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Yesterday we held the first chapel program of the year. This is my chance to present some ideas for the Philander community. My subject was "What Would King Do?" Yesterday was such an historic event being the 53rd anniversary of the murder of Emmitt Till, and the 45th anniversary of the March on Washington and King's "I Have a Dream" speech. With Obama giving his acceptance speech last night, I wanted to talk about what King might think about this day. In short, he would sob, celebrate, and sacrifice.

So I think the students got the message and why it is important for them to be involved in their communities. I ended with the new John Legend song that was performed Monday night. It is a great message about understanding that we all are the leaders we look for, and we had better get to work right now because the future started yesterday and we're already late.

 

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We had a nice piece written about us in the blog done by Diverse Issues in Higher Education by Dr. Marybeth Gasman:

http://diverseeducation.wordpress.com/2008/08/24/thinking-about-justice-in-little-rock-philander-smith-college/

 

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Tonight we had our opening Black Male Initiative dinner with Byron Hurt, filmmaker who produced "Beyond Beats and Rhymes." The video deals with how hip hop projects images of masculinity and its impact on both men and women. Tonight I wanted him to address the 100 men in the room about sexism and mysogny. He was surprised that this was a high priority for us. I told him that we launched our social justice initiative last year, and despite what conservatives think (that we'll simply blame "the man" for all of our problems) social justice also means dealing with the problems within our community, and two of the greatest issues are black on black crime and violence against black women perpetrated by black men. He indicated that battery was the most common form of violence against women, and that 1 in 4 college women are raped or sexually assaulted.

I was just glad to bring this topic to light as men never really have this conversation. And while we are silent, our mothers, sisters, daughters, etc. are constantly abused verbally and physically. The guys responded very well to Byron, even though we had to force many of them to come. But I would do it again because they payed close attention during his 45 minute presentation.

At the end, we presented the brothers with pins to wear proudly as a part of this new program, and there was news coverage on KATV channel 4. It was good to be able to provide this kind of news story to let the community know that we're dealing with all of the issues in our community.

 

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