Yesterday we hosted Dr. William Jelani Cobb, associate professor of history at Spelman College, for Bless the Mic. All of our new students are reading his book, "The Devil and Dave Chappelle" for class. The book is a collection of essays, ranging from Three 6 Mafia winning a Grammy, to the Million Man March. The discussions in class have been very rich, and in my class we rarely get through enough of the readings in those 50 minutes.

So that afternoon he had a chance to do a Q&A with the students. He told me later (I was on my way back from Indianapolis) that he really enjoyed that conversation and that the students really challenged his ideas, even going to the page of the book for parts they wanted to discuss. That definitely made me proud!

That night he spoke from his upcoming book on the Barack Obama run for presidency. He discussed the challenges he faced within the Black community and especially the Black establishment which solidly opposed him at first (except for Rev. Joe Lowery). But that his model, winning the Black vote versus being seen as the black protestor, may be a new model for Black politics.

Although most folks are not knowledgeable about him, we had a great turn out (even on a debate night), which is a good sign that the series continues to grow. As one of my friends told me last night, Dr. Cobb was very scholarly, but that his discussion was "wet" (meaning, not dry). He is a true academic but was able to really make some good insights for the crowd. I enjoyed the little time I spent picking his brain. I am sure we'll be reading more of his work in the near future.

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Below is the article about Philander Smith College for the local magazine, Soiree. The students pictured are Amber Hazell from San Francisco, and Marcel Jagne-Shaw from Baltimore.

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Interesting article from Inside Higher Ed:

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

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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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