My colleague Zenobia died recently. I just got a call tonight from another colleague in Baltimore, and a PhD student at Virgina Tech sent me the campus announcement. We met at a chief student affairs conference in 2002 at NC A&T and became good friends. She was seen prominently on the news in 2007 after the shootings there. She was cool people- a former Miss Spelman College as well.

Here is the information from the Virginia Tech website:

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BLACKSBURG, Va., October 27, 2008 -- Vice President for Student Affairs Zenobia Lawrence Hikes, whose strength and leadership helped unite the Virginia Tech community—most notably in the hours and days following the tragic events of April 16, 2007, has died from complications following cardiac surgery. She was 53 years old.

“Dr. Hikes was a deeply dedicated, charismatic, and inspirational leader who brought successful new ideas and leadership to the Division of Student Affairs,” said President Charles Steger. “Her passing is a terrible loss to our community. She will be deeply missed by the students whom she served daily and by colleagues who were inspired by her dynamic thinking and creative ideas.”

It was Hikes who organized the University Convocation held April 17, 2007, in Cassell Coliseum. The event, broadcast around the world, offered comfort and hope to a grief stricken university community as well those who watched the event.

Hikes was named vice president for student affairs at Virginia Tech on Sept. 1, 2005, having previously served as vice president for student affairs and dean of students at Spelman College in Atlanta, Ga.

In her three years at Virginia Tech, Hikes made numerous contributions to improve the quality of student life on campus. Among these were “Hokie Camp,” which began this summer and afforded 300 new students an opportunity to learn more about university traditions, respect for diversity, and the community-oriented spirit that thrives throughout the Virginia Tech.

In 2006, Hikes launched “SafeWatch”, a program that promotes individual and collective responsibility among students, faculty, staff, and guests, and encourages them to incorporate the Virginia Tech Principles of Community into their interpersonal and intergroup relationships. Patterned after the “neighborhood watch” program, SafeWatch promoted understanding of university policies and community expectations related to harassment, discrimination, or similar behaviors, and provide a way to report instances when policies and expectations are not followed.

“In addition to her many programmatic contributions, Zenobia cared deeply about the students she served,” said Edward Spencer, associate vice president for student affairs. “She often held open forums for students, for example, simply to know what they were thinking and to hear their concerns. Students connected with her because they could see the compassion she felt for them.”

As the chief executive officer for Virginia Tech’s Student Affairs division, Hikes oversaw 14 university departments, including student life, housing and dining programs, career services, student health, and recreational sports.

With more than 20 years of administrative and leadership experience in the areas of enrollment management and student support services, Hikes has written and presented papers on race-specific student recruitment and retention, first-generation college admissions, and leadership development.

In addition to her professional experiences, Hikes has been active in both the civic and higher education arenas. Her civic involvement has focused on building multi-racial coalitions and empowering disenfranchised women and children. She has served on the boards of the Georgia Breast Cancer Coalition and the Governor’s Tourism Advisory Board for the State of Delaware.

Prior to her position at Spelman, Hikes was at the University of Delaware, serving as the assistant to the vice president for student life from 1996 to 1999 and associate director of admissions from 1992 to 1996. She also was assistant director of admissions and recruitment at Louisiana State University, Shreveport, from 1986 to 1992.

In addition to her career in student affairs, Hikes has been a high school English teacher in Georgia and media specialist for the Navy/Marine Corps Family Service Center in Okinawa, Japan, where she led public relations programs and media campaigns.

During her career, Hikes’ professional affiliations have included the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, Southern Association for College Student Affairs, The College Board, National Association of College Admissions Counselors, and the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.

Hikes received her Ed.D. from the University of Delaware, a master’s from Georgia Southwestern University, and a bachelor’s degree with honors from Spelman College

Last Thursday for our social justice chapel, we hosted Yasmin Gabriel. Yasmin came to national attention after Hurricane Katrina when she made a documentary about how the storm impacted college students. She was interviewed several times on CNN about the movie, "Picking Up the Pieces." I caught an interview one Sunday afternoon at the gym and tracked her down. She's now a law student at Howard.

Yasmin was great. Instead of trying to give a speech (she's 24 and wanted to connect with the students), she had them develop several ideas of issues they face and then work through how students at PSC could improve those conditions. The ideas ranged from the rate of HIV in Black women, to creating a hotline for students to call when they have problems. She challenged the students as well- calling out a couple of guys as appropriate! The students swarmed her after her presentation. I really wanted them to see her because there isn't a huge age difference, and she presented a very polished, young professional for the students to emulate.

Later, she met with a smaller group of students, again to share ideas and to provide them with a project to work on. So promised to make it back through to check on the students. I hope she continues to speak on campuses as she really did a great job.

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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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