Interesting article from Inside Higher Ed:

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

The Prez

I just returned from the fall UNCF meeting. Each fall, it is held in the city of a member institution. Last fall, we hosted in Little Rock. This year, we were in New Orleans. We toured Dillard and Xavier. Both were damaged greatly by Katrina. The progress at both has been amazing, especially at Dillard. I was on the campus the July after Katrina for the inauguration of President Hughes. So going back 2 years later I saw great progress- the campus looks great. Her new office was fabulous as well.

These are definitely 2 of the stars of the UNCF, so it was a pleasure visiting their campuses.

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I forgot to go back and add some personal comments about James Carville. He was GREAT with the students. He spent time during the reception just to talk about their experience at the College and the things that are important to them. He weaved that into his speech telling the students that we have given them a mess, but they have to fix it.

So I think the students had a chance to really engage a major political figure. At his speech, he talked about people complaining that it is difficult to communicate in a sound bite. The time is only 7 seconds, but he gave an example: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Less than 7 seconds.

He concluded by saying that you can go through life making rain or go through life getting rained on.

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We had several students over tonight to watch the Presidential debate. It was an interesting event, and the group overall thought Obama won handily. They also ate a lot of food, got full- and then sleepy.

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We had a wonderful coronation last Sunday. Our queen is Lauren Allen, a presidential scholar from Kansas City. Lauren has been a great student to work with, and she has lots of potential. She aspires to become an attorney, and participated in the PLUS program at UALR this past summer. But the event was very, very nice.

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Yesterday we invited every two and four year college and university in the state to a conference featuring Dr. Shaun Harper, assistant professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania. Shaun was on the cover of Diverse Issues in Higher Education last fall for his work on Black men. I invited him because in Arkansas, one out of four Black men who start college finish in 6 years- that's it. We are actually a little above the state average, but way too low. So we invited Shaun to offer some ideas, and we thought we'd share with the state.

The event was very educational. He provided some tangible steps we can take in order to improve Black male student success. I think one of the key points was finding ways to engage the unengaged, and that will mean working differently with this group. He also favored unstructured mentoring programs so that students can find persons whose interests match their. We currently have a structured program, but have not been successful with finding enough mentors, so some of us have multiple students.

We also had great news coverage. Below is a story that was aired on the local Fox affiliate.

http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=c784463f-f0c9-4747-945c-0a7c9f70e0fc

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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.

The Prez

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