Last night, our Panther Programming Union (PPU) and the International Students Association sponsored a documentary by Patrick Mureithi, a native of Kenya, about the Rwanda genocide and a program to reconcile persons engaged on both sides of the conflict. Several Arkansas schools are working with the Rwandan government to educate students here. We are one of the schools, and we had students attend last night from Hendrix College and UALR.

About 130 attended, which is great for a 90 minute documentary and discussion on a rainy Monday night. Patrick participated on the panel with about 8 of the Rwandan students (3 from PSC). It was a great event and very educational. If you want to learn more about this documentary, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAN_-Ylpjuw

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Each fall, the UNCF member presidents and board meet on a campus. 2 years ago, we hosted everyone here. This past week, we were at the place Booker T. Washington built- Tuskegee University.

Our host was Dr. Benjamin Payton, 5th president of Tuskegee. That's right- they have only had 5 presidents. He is in his 28th year as president.

I was excited to do the campus tour, and we also visited the Tuskegee Airmen memorial.

We were also able to attend a nice banquet where we heard the Tuskegee choir as well- they were excellent. So it was a great time at Tuskegee.

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Mid-terms are this week.

The Black Male Initiative did study tables on Sunday to get the men focused.

My freshman orientation class took a tough quiz today- you've got to know your PSC history!

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One of the most highly anticipated Bless the Mic events in the history of the series was Gabrielle Union. I really think people didn't believe she was actually coming to PSC. But by now, people should know anything is possible.

She spent time with the Street team for a private autograph party, and then attended a dinner with VIP guests (including little Kimbroughs).

She took more pictures, including the program participants, Brooke and Anthony.

The lecture was sponsored by Verizon Wireless. Remarks were given by PSC alumnus, Sherman Tate, on behalf of Verizon.

I hyped her up

And she took the stage. She commented that since I quoted Ice Cube in the intro, she had to give the keep it real speech!

She did a great job telling her story. Growing up in Nebraska, dealing with being a Black girl in an overwhelmingly white area, feeling lost as a student at UCLA, and being raped while at work.

Her overall message was that you can take control of your life once you decide who you are. She wasn't preachy, but just down to earth and conversational. I'm sure the 600+ in attendance would agree.

This definitely was a great hit. Having a chance to hang out with her after the lecture was definitely a highlight for me and I am definitely an even bigger fan these days. She is truly good people and a new friend of the hip hop president and PSC.

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Today we held our Pathfinders Mentoring program reception. The program is a way for new students to meet faculty and staff in hopes of finding a person to serve as an on campus mentor.

The event was set like speed dating. During the first round, students went to various tables for 1 minute introductions.

During the second round, they would spend 2 minutes with the faculty or staff person, asking more detailed questions. At the end, they could talk to whomever they wanted to and begin to select mentors.

Over 40 students participated and about 25 faculty and staff. We have to keep working to get more faculty and staff to participate as the students are eager to make connections, but two mentees per person is still very manageable.

We'll see who I get as a mentee.

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Little Rock is finally coming up! John Legend came to town!

He did a 90 minute set, with the first 80 minutes non-stop, and then doing 2 encore numbers. The band was tight, and we had a great crowd.

Members of the Black Male Initiative attended as a group, and got a chance to meet John Legend after the show.

And so did Adria Kimbrough.

As well as The Prez!

Wednesday we held our annual President's Luncheon which helps us meet our UNCF annual fundraising goal. This year was a strong year, with over $70,000 raised for the college. We had strong attendance from the corporate community. Our honorary chair was Rush Harding of Crews and Associates, a great friend of the college.

Here are some scenes from the luncheon.

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Brittany and Alex

Gerald, Kamara, Sharon, and Marcel

Representatives from the United Methodist Church

Greater Little Rock Alumni

Lt. Governor Bill Halter

The crowd

The Collegiate Choir

Luncheon Chair Rush Harding

Monday night we kicked off season 5 of Bless the Mic with RNC chair Michael Steele. When I booked him back in February or March, I had no idea that we would be in the midst of these heated and often incivil debates. So there was lots of interest in his speech.

I was excited too, but for the first time, I missed a lecture. My father-in-law passed last Wednesday, and his funeral was Monday. I came back after the funeral, but with the weather in Atlanta causing major problems, my original flight was cancelled, so I just saw the last 5 minutes of the Q&A.

But the plan has been to have students run the lectures, so this was a true trial by fire! I have 3 juniors and 3 sophomores who serve as the team directors, and then 27 freshmen team members. So I was confident in them. I think the problem they had was too many people trying to fill in for me to give them instructions. I have to tell folks they they've got this.

So I didn't get to do introduction, so my stand in was our team director, Felicia White. I watched her speech and she did well.

I haven't watched Steele yet but most were impressed. We will have to revamp our Q&A as a young man was escorted out after trying to do a follow up. If I had been there I would have allowed him to do so, because Steele shot down his original argument, so I would have been curious to see if he could recover. But we'll keep improving.

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