In 2004, the Chicago Public Schools, along with Siemens Corporation, sponsored the first HBCU scholarship fair for CPS students who generally have a 3.0 and 20 on the ACT. I was just selected as president in 2004, but attended the next year and have attended every year since then. This is always a good event as 300 to 400 students, parents, grandparents, counselors and teachers holler and scream when they receive their scholarship awards.

This year 24 HBCUs participated. I was the only president, and the only one who has been at everyone one over the past 4 years. I like to meet the students and parents, and since many don't know us, I have to work harder to compete with the "brand name" schools that get lots of applications, but are not progressive at all! I told them to check out the schools and see who has blogs by the president, or a president on Facebook. That ends it right there.

After all the schools make the announcements, we spend several hours meeting students getting additional applications. This is always the game changer for me because every year a student says they didn't know about us, but now wanted to know more. Every year, I have gotten students from this event- very good students, so it is worth the trip (especially since Siemens and CPS cover the costs).

I told the students I would blog about the night- and I am keeping my word.

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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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