With Economic Slump, Fewer Students Expected to Enroll in Black Colleges

With Economic Slump, Fewer Students Expected to Enroll in Black Colleges: While their counterparts are seeing unprecedented numbers of applications, many historically Black colleges and universities aren’t seeing an increase at all. In addition, they have the burden of knowing those who do apply and get accepted probably won’t be able to afford to enroll this fall.

Since they often serve students with the most financial need, historically Black private schools are concerned whether admitted students can afford to pay tuition.

“We’ve had a double-digit increase in applications for our scholarships, which suggests students want to go to private and public HBCUs, but the question is can they afford it,” says Dr. Michael Lomax, president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund. “We don’t know if we will have the resources to help these students go to school … . A number of our long-standing partners are reducing their level of support so the resources are not clearly identifiably there.”

At a time when many students need financial aid the most, they will find that the money simply isn’t there.

Fair Pay Law Strikes A Blow For Equal Pay : NPR

Fair Pay Law Strikes A Blow For Equal Pay : NPR: Morning Edition, January 29, 2009. Lilly Ledbetter just wanted what was fair — to earn the same pay as her male co-workers for the same work. She took on Goodyear, her employer in Alabama, and her case went to the Supreme Court. Her years-long battle ends in triumph Thursday with a fair pay act named in her honor.

President Barack Obama signed an equal-pay bill into law Thursday before cheering labor and women leaders who fought hard for it and the woman whose history-making lawsuit gave impetus to the cause.

Obama, choosing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act as the first bill to sign as president, called it a "wonderful day" and declared that ending pay disparities between men and woman an issue not just for women, but for all workers.

With Ledbetter standing by his side, Obama said she lost more than $200,000 in salary, and even more in pension and Social Security benefits that she "still feels today." He then signed the measure that effectively nullifies a 2007 Supreme Court decision and makes it easier for workers to sue for discrimination by allowing them more time to do so.

America's Beauty Is In Its Diversity : NPR

America's Beauty Is In Its Diversity : NPR: America is built on the idea of freedom, and there is no exception for Muslim women. I believe in the freedom of religion and speech. But mostly, I believe it's OK to be different, and to stand up for who and what you are. So I believe in wearing the hijab.

The hijab is a religious head covering, like a scarf. I am Muslim, and keeping my head covered is a sign of maturity and respect toward my religion and to Allah's will. To be honest, I also like to wear it to be different. I don't usually like to do what everyone else is doing. I want to be an individual, not just part of the crowd. But when I first wore it, I was also afraid of the reaction that I'd get at school.

I decided on my own that sixth grade was the time I should start wearing the hijab. I was scared about what the kids would say or even do to me. I thought they might make fun of me, or even be scared of me and pull off my headscarf. Kids at that age usually like to be all the same, and there's little or no acceptance of differences.

The New Black Manhood | The Root

The New Black Manhood | The Root: Many Americans have undoubtedly had an Obama Meltdown Moment by now. It’s that instance when the unimaginable hugeness of the past year, the past few months and the past few days suddenly hits you and you say to yourself, “Oh my God, we have a black president.”

Unlike my friends who cried while watching Barack Obama give his acceptance speech on Nov. 4, or while watching him give his inaugural address last week, my meltdown occurred while I was watching CNN a day after the election. On the screen was a grade-school classroom of black boys discussing Obama’s victory. One after another, each student stood up to speak—backs straight, crisp white shirts tucked neatly in their belted pants—to tell their classmates what Obama’s election meant to them.

One boy tried three times to put his feelings into words, but he just could not get a full sentence out. On the fourth try, he put his head down on his desk and began to cry. His classmates crowded around to comfort him. Some put their arms around his shoulders; others patted his back.

It’s OK, they gently told him. It’s OK, man.

Tears welled in the eyes of their teacher, a young white man clearly proud of his young charges at this all-black, all-boy, public charter school. The CNN correspondent reporting the story was also visibly moved. I cried, too.

Market Losses Tighten Screws On Colleges - washingtonpost.com

American colleges and universities lost an average of 23 percent on their endowment investments last semester, according to a national survey to be released today, a drop that is hurting the bottom line across the board, from major state institutions to the Ivy League.

Colleges are feeling financial pressure from all sides as the economic crisis deepens. State funding has dropped. Private donations are expected to decline. And with more families facing job losses and dwindling savings, some schools say they are reluctant to raise tuition or cut financial aid.

Instead, half of the private colleges taking part in a separate survey said they are freezing hiring, delaying building projects or restricting staff travel.

"This is the most challenging environment that any of us in higher education have seen in our professional lifetimes," said Molly Broad, president of the American Council on Education, "because of the combination of revenue declines from multiple sources and because of the continuing uncertainty."

Ivy League ‘Discomfort’ Leads to Black Cuba

Ivy League ‘Discomfort’ Leads to Black Cuba: In 2002, Robin Hayes was a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University in African American studies and political science. Yet, she wasn’t feeling so Ivy League.

So she embarked on a journey to find herself, along with several other academics who felt similarly out of place at Yale. The group of African American studies graduate students, dubbing themselves “The Black Resistance Reading Group,” decided to take a “field trip” to Cuba.

That whirlwind weeklong trip became a documentary: “Finding our Revolutionary Selves in Black Cuba,” produced and directed by Hayes.

Now an assistant professor of ethnic studies and political science at Santa Clara University, Hayes has been screening the documentary across the country. Visit diverseeducation.com to view scenes from the documentary and read what Hayes had to say about the conflicts that led to its creation, including the group’s discomfort at Yale.

Fewer College Students Returning for Second Year

Fewer College Students Returning for Second Year: First-year college retention is slipping among the nation’s four-year, public and private institutions, while retention rates are increasing at two-year public colleges, researchers say.

Retention rates among four-year institutions are at the lowest level since researchers at ACT, Inc., a national testing service, began gathering such data 26 years ago. According to the latest results of an annual survey conducted by ACT, the percentage of U.S. college freshmen who return to the same college for their second year of school hovers around 66 percent. Part of a three-year downward trend, the number of college students retained overall by postsecondary institutions declined 3 percent from 2005 to 2008.

But retention rates for two-year institutions are at an all-time high, according to the survey. Fifty-four percent of students at two-year public colleges returned for their second year in 2007-2008, up from 51 percent the previous year.

High Lead Levels Found in D.C. Kids - washingtonpost.com

High Lead Levels Found in D.C. Kids - washingtonpost.com: A new study concludes that hundreds of young children in the District experienced potentially damaging amounts of lead in their blood when lead levels were dramatically rising in the city's tap water.

In some high-risk neighborhoods, the number of toddlers and infants with blood-lead concentrations that can cause irreversible IQ loss and developmental delays more than doubled after harmful levels of lead began leaching into the city's drinking water in 2001, according to the findings. The peer-reviewed study, obtained by The Washington Post, is to be published soon in Environmental Science and Technology, a journal on advances in chemical and environmental research.

Authors of the study, at Virginia Tech and Children's National Medical Center, said their findings raise concern about the 42,000 D.C. children, now ages 4 to 9, who were in the womb or younger than 2 during the water crisis. Those children might be at risk of future health and behavioral problems linked to lead, the report said.

Immigrant Teens Struggle With Formal Schooling - NYTimes.com

Immigrant Teens Struggle With Formal Schooling - NYTimes.com: ...New York City classrooms have long been filled with children from all over the world, and the education challenges they bring with them. But hidden among the nearly 150,000 students across the city still struggling to learn English are an estimated 15,100 who, like Fanta, have had little or no formal schooling and are often illiterate in their native languages.

More than half of these arrive as older teenagers and land in the city’s high schools, where they must learn how to learn even as their peers prepare for state subject exams required for a diploma.

“They don’t always have a notion of what it means to be a student,” said Stephanie Grasso, an English teacher at Ellis Prep, which opened this fall and is New York’s first school devoted to this hard-to-educate population. “Certain ideas are completely foreign to them. They have to learn how to ask questions and understand things for themselves.”

The largest share of these students come from rural areas of the Dominican Republic, where they did not attend school because it was too far away or because they were working to support their families. Others fled religious persecution in Tibet, civil wars in West Africa or extreme poverty in Central America, often missing years of class while in refugee camps.

Study Sees an Obama Effect as Lifting Black Test-Takers - NYTimes.com

Study Sees an Obama Effect as Lifting Black Test-Takers - NYTimes.com: Educators and policy makers, including Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, have said in recent days that they hope President Obama’s example as a model student could inspire millions of American students, especially blacks, to higher academic performance.

Now researchers have documented what they call an Obama effect, showing that a performance gap between African-Americans and whites on a 20-question test administered before Mr. Obama’s nomination all but disappeared when the exam was administered after his acceptance speech and again after the presidential election.

The inspiring role model that Mr. Obama projected helped blacks overcome anxieties about racial stereotypes that had been shown, in earlier research, to lower the test-taking proficiency of African-Americans, the researchers conclude in a report summarizing their results.

“Obama is obviously inspirational, but we wondered whether he would contribute to an improvement in something as important as black test-taking,” said Ray Friedman, a management professor at Vanderbilt University, one of the study’s three authors. “We were skeptical that we would find any effect, but our results surprised us.”

The study has not yet undergone peer review, and two academics who read it on Thursday said they would be interested to see if other researchers would be able to replicate its results.

Hispanic Student Heads to Washington to Be Congressional Page

When Glance High School student Jose Echevarria arrived in Oregon at age 9 he spoke no English and had no political favors to call in.

At 16, he has a resume that should put him on an Ivy League track, and he left this past week end for Washington, D.C., to be a U.S. congressional page.

"This is the most stressful thing I've ever done," Echevarria said from his home in Cornelius. "It took a lot of thinking."

Echevarria won over the three judges with his straight-A grades, school leadership positions and acceptance to a Latino law camp at Georgetown University. He was one of 18 Oregon applicants. It was his character and the trust others have in him, said Susan Marcus, one of the judges and a retired teacher.

U.S. Rep. David Wu sponsored Echevarria, but the teenager will serve all 435 House members, delivering messages, preparing the House chambers and raising the flag at the Capitol, among other duties. He will join 71 other House pages.

Page appointments rotate among the members of Congress. Wu has sponsored three pages during his 10 years in office.

The teen-ager was worried because he will not be able to take his Advanced Placement exams at the end of the school year. The page’s boarding school in Washington, D.C., doesn't offer them.

Echevarria sought the advice of counselors at the University of Portland, his top college choice in Oregon. They said the page job would stand out on his application. Echevarria also has designs on Georgetown and Harvard.

Echevarria was born in the state of Michoacan, Mexico, to parents with little education. His father, a nursery manager, taught himself to read and write. Echevarria said his mother, a hotel housekeeper, is illiterate.

The Academy Speaks

The Academy Speaks: ...Regardless of academic discipline (and I mean that), there are ways to create an inclusive classroom. In terms of syllabi, it is possible to include articles written by individuals from a wide variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds and about issues that touch the lives of people from various racial and ethnic perspectives. One can bring in examples that are relevant to everyone in a course rather than just the majority. In terms of assignments, one can keep an open mind in terms of the diversity of answers to most problems. And, of most importance, when racial incidents arise in the classroom, faculty members need to speak up, facilitate helpful discussions around the incidents, and provide support for those who are offended and the offender (otherwise the offender doesn’t learn).

With Nation’s New President, Promise and ‘No Excuses’ for Black Students

With Nation’s New President, Promise and ‘No Excuses’ for Black Students: WASHINGTON, DC – Less than 15 minutes into his presidency, President Barack Obama uttered the words “we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.

Retired schoolteacher Judy Brooks, 64, of Amherst, Mass., yelled out a “Yes!”

“He’s going to be the man to change our future,” Brooks later told Diverse.

In some ways, Obama already had. Brooks and her husband, Barry Brooks, 67, a retired school guidance counselor, had one of their first dates on Aug. 28, 1963, at the other end of the National Mall at the Lincoln Memorial. There, they listened to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

“We saw him say the words, ‘I have a dream,’’’ said Brooks, who Tuesday, more than 45 years later, sat with cane in hand at the opposite end of the Mall near the U.S. Capitol to witness the inauguration of the nation’s first Black president. “We now have overcome.”

Education and civil rights advocates from across the country were out in force for the nation’s largest inauguration in history. Presidents of historically Black colleges came, as did the president of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. Schoolteachers and professors made their way to the event to celebrate the man who was once one of them – as a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago. And, of course, college students from every corner of the country came to witness the historic occasion firsthand.

Jefferson, Not Hemings, Inspiration for Top Book Award

Jefferson, Not Hemings, Inspiration for Top Book Award: It would be easy to assume that a desire to document an enslaved woman’s rightful place in history started Dr. Annette Gordon-Reed down the path that led to her recent triumph as the winner of the National Book Award for nonfiction. But it is a fascination with Thomas Jefferson himself, not Sally Hemings or the bonds between them, that has captivated this scholar and writer since her childhood.

Gordon-Reed, who is a history professor at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., as well as a professor of law at New York Law School, became the first African-American woman to win the National Book Awards’ nonfiction prize for her book, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. She is also the first Black author to win the nonfiction prize since 1991 when Orlando Patterson won for Freedom. Other African-Americans have won in other categories.

Her book examines the lives of Sally, her siblings and her children born and reared at Monticello and owned by Jefferson.

Families Await Sharpest Tuition Increases in Years

Families Await Sharpest Tuition Increases in Years: Most high school seniors and their families have not made final college plans for next fall. But they know this: It's probably going to cost more than they had planned.

Even in good economic times, states and colleges have largely failed to hold tuition increases in line with inflation. Now as the slumping economy forces states to slash spending, students can expect the sharpest increases in years.

Families are calling on colleges to absorb as much of the burden as possible instead of passing the extra costs on to students.

“In my business, my customers are asking me for price concessions,” said John Schock of Raleigh, N.C., who works in sales for a company in the automotive industry and whose son is looking at colleges. He said colleges “have an obligation as well.”

Final prices will not be set until state budgets are finished in the coming months, but the trend is clear. In California, the governor's proposed budget would raise university fees around 10 percent. Florida's governor is trying to give several state schools more power to raise prices. And universities in both states plan to cut enrollment slots.

Andra Gillespie - Obama's Job and Ours - washingtonpost.com

Andra Gillespie - Obama's Job and Ours - washingtonpost.com: ...I study race in my work as a political scientist, and I have come to fear that the symbolism of the Obama presidency lulls us into thinking that we no longer have to be on our guard against prejudice or inequality. Consider an exchange I had last summer, when I stopped at an antiques shop in Christiansburg, Va. The shop carried a few pieces of memorabilia that were troubling to me as a black woman, such as lawn jockeys and racist children's books, and I questioned the man running the store about them.

The dealer became defensive and attempted to deflect the criticism in my questions by responding that he was an Obama supporter and that his neighbors were black professionals. At that moment, I wondered whether "I voted for Obama" would eventually replace "Some of my best friends are black" as the standard, tired rationalization of anyone caught in a racist moment.

Yes, America has made tremendous racial progress in the past generation and a half. Very few people thought that a mere 43 years after blacks were fully enfranchised, a black man would become president of the United States. But the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow is long and deep; there is still much room for improvement.

Basics - In ‘Geek Chic’ and Obama, New Hope for Lifting Women in Science - NYTimes.com

Basics - In ‘Geek Chic’ and Obama, New Hope for Lifting Women in Science - NYTimes.com: With the inauguration of an administration avowedly committed to Science as the grand elixir for the nation’s economic, environmental and psycho-reputational woes, a number of scientists say that now is the time to tackle a chronic conundrum of their beloved enterprise: how to attract more women into the fold, and keep them once they are there.

Researchers who have long promoted the cause of women in science view the incoming administration with a mix of optimism and we’ll-see-ism. On the one hand, they said, the new president’s apparent enthusiasm for science, and the concomitant rise of “geek chic” and “smart is the new cool” memes, can only redound to the benefit of all scientists, particularly if the enthusiasm is followed by a bolus of new research funds. On the other hand, they said, how about appointing a woman to the president’s personal Poindexter club, the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology? The designated leaders so far include superstars like Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate, and Eric Lander, genome meister.

The Rosalind Franklin Society, a group devoted to “recognizing the work of prominent women scientists,” has suggested possible co-chairwomen for the panel. Its candidates include Shirley Ann Jackson, a nuclear physicist and president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Shirley Tilghman, a molecular biologist and president of Princeton University. Others have proposed Jacqueline Barton, a chemist and MacArthur fellow at the California Institute of Technology. Or, given the increasing importance of brain research, how about a prominent female neuroscientist like Nancy Kanwisher of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Carla Shatz of Stanford University?

Inauguration is lesson plan at Obama Elementary - washingtonpost.com

Inauguration is lesson plan at Obama Elementary - washingtonpost.com: HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. -- Some schoolchildren stood and recited the oath along with the new president. Others shouted 'Amen' at the end of the invocation.

But perhaps no school in the country celebrated the historic inauguration of the nation's 44th president with more enthusiasm than the hundreds of students at the newly renamed Barack Obama Elementary School in Hempstead, Long Island.

'I was just speechless. I don't even have the words to explain the feelings,' said Principal Jean Bligen, who won tickets to the inauguration in a lottery, but decided the only place she wanted to be Tuesday was with her students. 'It was remarkable. Absolutely remarkable.'

Officials in the predominantly minority school district voted soon after Election Day to rename the school in honor of the Illinois Democrat.

On Tuesday, all 460 students wore navy blue sweat shirts emblazoned with the words 'Barack Obama Elementary School _ Yes We Can' on their chests.

Sorting Children Into 'Cannots' and 'Cans' Is Just Racism in Disguise - washingtonpost.com

Sorting Children Into "Cannots" and "Cans" Is Just Racism in Disguise - washingtonpost.com: Tomorrow marks a turning point in the history of our schools as well as our country. Note how the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom we honor today, had to confront the cold, hard, in-your-face prejudice of a legally segregated system, while the next president, Barack Obama, speaks of a softer negligence, illuminated by the frequently heard phrase, 'These kids can't learn.'

These days, those of us interested in schools -- parents, students, educators, researchers, journalists -- are not sure if we believe in teaching or sorting. Is it best to strain ourselves and our children trying to raise everyone to a higher academic level, or does it make more sense to prepare each child for a life in which he or she will be comfortable? The people I admire in our schools want to be teachers. Sorting, they say, is a new form of the old racism but subtler and in some ways harder to resist.

Latinos Upset Over Process for Denver Schools Chief

Latino leaders are complaining that the Denver Public School Board's did not consider Hispanics before choosing a finalist for the superintendent’s job even though Latino students make up 60 percent of those enrolled in the district..

The newly formed Colorado Latino Forum says the selection process was secretive.

The board chose 44-year-old Tom Boasberg as the sole finalist to replace superintendent Michael Bennet. Gov. Bill Ritter picked Bennet last week to fill the U.S. Senate seat left open by Ken Salazar, who is President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for Interior Secretary.

More than 20 Latino Forum members signed a letter Friday to school board president Theresa Pena asking to talk about having a transparent and open process for Boasberg's selection and future appointments.

"It is a shame that you would announce such an important appointment without even going to the community that has the most to lose or gain," they say in the letter.

Former Denver Councilwoman Ramona Martinez said Latinos "are disappointed that our voices continue to be ignored" by people they help to get elected.

Boasberg, who has been the district's chief operating officer since May 2007, told The Denver Post editorial board Friday that he's a good choice because he's been part of recent reforms at the district and that it's not "a time to bring someone else new in."

"I've played a large role in the past two years of helping to set that direction,” he said. “What we need to do is make sure we're continuing that direction and accelerating."

Tom Joyner to help Va Union raise money

Tom Joyner to help Va Union raise money: RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Virginia Union University is getting some help raising money from radio personality Tom Joyner.

The nationally syndicated 'The Tom Joyner Morning Show' will feature the university throughout January. The goal is to raise $200,000.

Joyner's foundation has pledged to match $5,000 from each of five alumni chapters. School officials say that match already has brought in $40,000.

The Tom Joyner Foundation has helped raise money for historically black colleges and universities since 1998. The radio show is aired in 115 markets and reaches nearly 8 million people.

A similar effort to help Virginia Union eight years ago brought in $200,000. School officials say the recession caused them to keep the goal the same instead of raising it.

Diverse 25th Anniversary

Diverse 25th Anniversary: In observance of a quarter century of publishing the 25th Anniversary National Summit and Celebration will be THE professional development event for leaders in higher education as well as people and organizations that help institutions of higher education build their power and impact on behalf of students and faculty of color.

A virtual “who’s who” of American educational, political, and policy leaders will come together to reflect on where we have been for the last 25 years, but more importantly to develop action plans to successfully guide our collective future.

The purpose of this gathering is for all of us to work together to “raise the bar” on the quality of the curricula, outcomes, management, governance and leadership services that we provide in the field of education.


TOPICS TO INCLUDE:
* Identity Preservation in a diverse world
* Networking in achieving your Scholarly, Research and Career Goals
* Unclogging the Pipeline: Brilliant Innovations that work
* Climates that foster success
* Public Policy: The Obama Effect and New Rules of Engagement
* HBCU’s and TWI’s: Intensifying Collaborations
* Testing: (Un) Necessary–A look at the future and more

Voting Rights Law Under High Court Review

Voting Rights Law Under High Court Review: Days before the first Black president takes office, the Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider overturning a key feature of the main federal law that ensures access to the polls by minorities.

The justices said they will review a lower court ruling upholding a provision of the Voting Rights Act that requires all or parts of 16 states with a history of racial discrimination, most in the South, to get approval before implementing any changes in the way elections are held.

In 2006, Congress voted overwhelmingly to extend the measure for another 25 years. The 1965 law was designed to prevent governments from making it harder for minorities to vote.

The high court has upheld earlier extensions of the provision that calls for either the U.S. attorney general or a court to sign off in advance on changes to requirements to hold office, polling places and other issues involving the conduct of elections.

The justices will hear the case in April and probably decide it by June, against the backdrop of a presidential election that was unimaginable when the law was enacted more than 40 years ago.

Tribal Colleges’ Top Priority for Obama: ‘Full and Forward Funding’

Tribal Colleges’ Top Priority for Obama: ‘Full and Forward Funding’: As enrollment at tribal colleges spikes, American Indians are hoping the Obama administration will make good on campaign promises to increase funding.

From 1998 to 2001, Carrie Billy served as the first executive director of the White House Initiative on Tribal Colleges and Universities under the Clinton administration. During her tenure, TCUs received their largest ever federal funding increase as well as the establishment of the American Indian Teacher Corps Program, the Tribal College Technology Information Program and other important advances in tribal college funding and programming. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona and Georgetown University Law School.

Billy took over as head of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, which oversees 36 tribal colleges in the United States, last summer.

Black Colleges Seek Shelter From Economic Storm : NPR

Black Colleges Seek Shelter From Economic Storm : NPR: The financial woe faced by Morris Brown College is just the latest example of how a wounded economy creates serious challenges for higher education in America, and the nation's Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are no exception. Many of the schools already operate with limited resources.

Julianne Malveaux, president of Bennett College, an HBCU in North Carolina, and researcher Marybeth Gasman discuss the financial health of America's black colleges.

Immigrants See Charter Schools as a Haven

...Charter schools, which are publicly financed but independently run, were conceived as a way to improve academic performance. But for immigrant families, they have also become havens where their children are shielded from the American youth culture that pervades large district schools.

The curriculum at the Twin Cities International Elementary School, and at its partner middle school and high school, is similar to that of other public schools with high academic goals. But at Twin Cities International the girls say they can freely wear head scarves without being teased, the lunchroom serves food that meets the dietary requirements of Muslims, and in every classroom there are East African teaching assistants who understand the needs of students who may have spent years in refugee camps. Twin Cities International students are from Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Sudan, with a small population from the Middle East.

Amid the wave of immigration that has been reshaping Minnesota for more than three decades, the International schools are among 30 of the state’s 138 charter schools that are focused mostly on students from specific immigrant or ethnic groups. To visit a half-dozen of these schools, to listen to teachers, administrators and parents — Somali immigrants who are relatively new to Minnesota, as well as the Hmong and Latinos who have been in the state for decades — is to understand that Ms. Warsame’s high educational aspirations for her children, and her fears, are universal.

National Association of African American Studies

National Association of African American Studies

National Association of Hispanic and Latino Studies
National Association of Native American Studies
International Association of Asian Studies

National Conference
Baton Rouge Marriott
Baton Rouge, La.

Feb. 9-14

General Conference Information
This conference is multi-disciplinary and will include diverse topics. Presentations may include, but are not limited to: education, social issues, health issues, sports, religion, business, military, history, literature etc.

Speakers will come from across the country and several foreign countries. The national organization expects not fewer than 600 scholarly papers to be presented.
Contact: www.naaas.org

Not Just Black and White

Not Just Black and White: As a teenager, Dr. Anne Cheng held in awe the novel Invisible Man. She considered its words “nothing short of beautiful.”

But as an adult, she realized the novel resonated with her for other reasons too. Author Ralph Ellison’s themes of racial marginalization and exclusion reflected her upbringing in a White-Black world that ignored Asians like her.

“The book’s nuances spoke to something inside me,” says Cheng, a Princeton University professor of English and a core faculty member of its Center for African American Studies. She explores race and psychoanalytic theory in 20th-century American literature, especially Asian American and African- American literature.

A native of Taipei, Taiwan, Cheng immigrated with her family to the United States in the 1970s at age 12. Her obstetrician father settled them in Savannah, Ga., where he’d found work. Aside from family, Cheng’s daily life revolved around Whites and Blacks, groups that dominated Savannah.

Boy Scouts See Hispanics as Key to Survival

Boy Scouts See Hispanics as Key to Survival: As it prepares to turn 100, the Boy Scouts of America is honing its survival skills for what might be its biggest test yet: drawing Hispanics into its declining and mostly White ranks.

'We either are going to figure out how to make Scouting the most exciting, dynamic organization for Hispanic kids, or we're going to be out of business,' said Rick Cronk, former national president of the Boy Scouts, and chairman of the World Scout Committee.

The venerable Scouts remains the United States' largest youth organization, with 2.8 million children and youths, nearly all of them boys. But that is nearly half its peak membership, reached in 1972.

Its rolls took hits through the 1980s and ’90s over a still-standing ban on gay or atheist leaders, and scandals surrounding inflated membership numbers. In addition, teenagers raised on TV and shoot-'em-up games had less use for learning to build a campfire or memorize the Scout oath.

The country changed too. One in five children under 18 is Hispanic, according to the U.S. Census. But they make up only 3 percent of Scouts.

Emerging Scholars

Emerging Scholars: This year’s group of “emerging scholars” is a force to be reckoned with. The audacity of their excellence inspires everyone around them, and we at Diverse cannot help but marvel at this extraordinary ensemble of academicians. This diverse group of young (under-40) crusaders is pushing the boundaries of research, technology and public policy in ways never imagined and reaching new heights of accomplishments.

The Class of 2009 includes a physiologist who devised an artificial pancreas to produce the insulin that diabetics’ bodies cannot reject; a saxophoneplaying physicist who examines the existence of invisible matter; and an electrical engineer and former NASA researcher who works in the area of humanized intelligence and robotics.

Although our scholars are accomplished, accolades and achievement are a small fraction of what makes them so exceptional. Looking beyond the awards, Diverse reporters discovered stories of challenge and perseverance as well as hobbies and family traditions that tell us more about how these scholars round out their days.

This year’s crop of award-winning scholars was chosen by Diverse staff and in some cases nominated by colleagues. Some of our scholars benefited from a mentor; others sought inspiration elsewhere. Some attended minority-serving institutions, and a few are graduates of Ivy League schools. All are trailblazers. All are exceptional. Read all about them on the Diverse website: http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_12145.shtml

An Incomplete Identity

Even before I enrolled in my teacher education program, I was aware of the lack of teachers of color in a largely white and female teaching force. In the urban, suburban, and private schools I had attended, I could count the number of black teachers I'd had on one hand. By the time I began student teaching, I still barely needed to use two hands. I had spent three and a half years reflecting on the crisis in American education, with such a mismatch between the faces of the learners and the faces of those in power. I knew how empowering it felt to have a teacher who looked like me, standing in front of the class. I was familiar with the foundational identity work of Kenneth and Mamie Clark, William Cross Jr., W. E. B. Dubois, and others. I had read Juwanza Kunjufu, Lisa Delpit, Jonathan Kozol, Asa Hilliard Jr., and more.

From these readings and my own experiences, I was aware of the negative impact that not having black teachers had on black school-age students. I felt eager, but prepared for the frustrations student teaching would bring. My advisor warned me about the lack of sleep. I no longer regretted the loss of the college student weekend that started Thursday at 5 p.m. I had even come to terms with missing my last spring break, as my university's calendar was not aligned with the school system's. I was running on a bubbling passion to reach urban black students.

However, I was not prepared for the impact that the lack of black teachers and administrators in schools would have on me, only one semester from wrapping up my undergraduate career. And I was not prepared for the profound effect that their absence would have on my identity as a black teacher.

American Association of Blacks in Higher Education

American Association of
Blacks in Higher Education

ANNUAL NATIONAL CONFERENCE

America’s educational environment is still replete with challenges related to limited educational access and achievement. The achievement gap continues to be a major issue when we focus on the success of African American students in education. While acknowledging much progress has been made, we are still plagued with issues of limited educational access and achievement in many sectors of African American life. These issues have far reaching social and economic implications for our society. We envision this conference as an opportunity to focus on long-term strategic efforts to confront these related issues. Sessions and speakers will address a range of issues that affect our ability to better serve our students.

MARCH 25-29, 2009

ATLANTA, GA

On-line registration will be available January 9, 2009

Still Building The Dream

Still Building The Dream: Fundraising organizers for a national monument to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. report they have topped more than $100 million in donations. Plans call for the King memorial to be built on Washington, D.C.’s National Mall, between the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials. Construction has not begun, but planners are aiming for a 2010 completion. A ceremonial groundbreaking occurred in November 2006.

Of the $120 million needed, the Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation Inc. has collected $102 million, including a $1 million donation from UnitedHealth Group in December. Former President Bill Clinton will headline a Jan. 8 event entitled “Miami Dream Dinner” aimed at raising more funds.

More information about making donations is available online at www.buildthedream.org .

NM Institute Focuses on Hispanic Family Violence

New Mexico State University received a $250,000 grant to create an institute that is addressing issues of domestic violence among Hispanic populations nationwide.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded the funds to NMSU's College of Health and Social Services School of Social Work to establish the Hispanic Family Violence Institute.

'This is an exciting opportunity for the School of Social Work and NMSU,' said Martha Roditti, assistant professor and field coordinator at the School of Social Work. 'We have worked with HHS on other projects so they have seen the tremendous work we do to address family violence. With this funding we can now share our knowledge with others across the country.'

The university said the institute would undertake research, training and technical assistance to promote culturally relevant services to deal with family violence in Hispanic populations and to provide information on service delivery and evaluation.

Initial outreach efforts will focus on eight states across the United States with the fastest-growing Hispanic populations, officials said, and a Web site is being developed to host online publications and curriculums, as well as to provide tools to organizations serving Hispanic clients.

Catholic Educators Want More Latinos in Schools

A task force at the University of Notre Dame will look for strategies to get more Latino children into Catholic schools.

The University of Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program has established a new task force to examine the participation of Latino children and families in Catholic schools.

While some 75 percent of Latino immigrants are Catholic, only 3 percent send their children to Catholic schools, UND officials said.

However, research shows that Catholic schools serve low-income minority students -- especially Latinos -- far more effectively than comparable public school options, the university said. In Catholic schools, it said such students are 50 percent more likely to graduate from high school and 250 percent more likely to go to college than their peers in public schools.

'Recognizing the obstacles to expanding Latino enrollment in Catholic schools, yet deeply aware of the opportunities, we believe that now is the time for a serious national dialogue and the development of a national strategy,' said the Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., Notre Dame's president. 'Through this task force we aim to catalyze a dramatic increase in the enrollment of Latino children in Catholic schools nationally over the next decade.'

‘Putting Education First’ Rhodes Scholar says parents rewarded achievements in the classroom over football field.

‘Putting Education First’ Rhodes Scholar says parents rewarded achievements in the classroom over football field.: "Many boys fantasize about becoming stars on the football field or basketball court when they grow up and earning millions of dollars in endorsement deals.

Myron Rolle had a different dream.

“When I was younger, I’d get straight A’s in school and my parents would get me two pizza pies from my favorite Italian restaurant in New Jersey,” says Rolle, junior safety for the Florida State University Seminoles and recently named Rhodes Scholar.

“If I scored a touchdown or scored 20 points in a basketball game, hit two runs in baseball, they’d give me a pat on the back and say, ‘Good job,’” Rolle recalls of his childhood. “The reward was different. At that point, I realized how significant it was for me to do well in school and how much it meant to them.”

It’s bowl season in college football and FSU triumphed over the University of Wisconsin 42-13 in the Champs Sports Bowl on Dec. 27. It was the final college game for Rolle. But he’s not leaving to join the National Football League; Rolle, instead, is headed to Oxford.

Some See DREAM Act Within Reach

Some See DREAM Act Within Reach: Barack Obama’s presidential victory is fueling widespread optimism among student groups that Congress and the next White House will endorse long-debated legislation to help some undocumented students gain legal status.

These organizations see an opportunity to pass the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, through which undocumented students who complete high school and two years of college could gain conditional legal status and eventual citizenship.

“Our strategy is to get it done in the first 100 days [of the new administration],” says Shanta Driver, spokeswoman for BAMN Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary.

Groups such as the United States Student Association, based in Washington, D.C., also share that view. “The DREAM Act is one of our top priorities for the first 100 days,” says Angela Peoples, USSA legislative director. Students would qualify for legal status under the DREAM Act if they came to the United States before age 16; have lived in the United States for five years; graduated from a U.S. high school or passed a high school equivalency test; have good moral character with no criminal record; and attended college or enlisted in the military for two years. Student and civil rights groups have several reasons for their optimism.

Opinion: Editorial Pieces & Current Events Perspectives - USATODAY.com

Opinion: Editorial Pieces & Current Events Perspectives - USATODAY.com: The election of Barack Obama has sent an unmistakable message to young men and women of color that they can be anything they want if they put their mind to it.

Well, almost anything. The presidency may be within reach, but coaching a major college football program is another matter. College football stands out as perhaps the nation's most prominent symbol of institutionalized racism.

There is no other way to explain the numbers. Of the 119 head coaches in the NCAA's top-tier Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A), only nine (seven blacks, one Latino and one of Polynesian heritage) are minorities. This in a sport where half the players are black.

IN MEMORIAM

IN MEMORIAM: What an exciting and traumatic year 2008 has been. A historic presidential campaign that ended with the election of an African-American to the U.S. presidency. An economic meltdown not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

We also lost those who have made a significant impact to the academy as well as American culture.

Diverse takes a look at those who died this year and recalls the contributions they made to the national and global community.

From Stephanie Tubbs Jones to Odetta to Isaac Hayes, Diverse examines the contributions to the world at large by extraordinary Americans who were laid to rest in 2008.

"Role Models: Feminine Identity in Contemporary American Photography" - Arts & Events - Washington City Paper

"Role Models: Feminine Identity in Contemporary American Photography" - Arts & Events - Washington City Paper: The images in “Role Models: Feminine Identity in Contemporary American Photography” are more than just shot—they are dressed-up, drawn-on, posed, and constructed. The photographs document 40 years of female artifice, from Eleanor Antin’s sepia-toned historical re-enactments of Florence Nightingale rescues to Mary Ellen Mark’s portrait of a young Seattle prostitute on Halloween—dressed as a grown-up French prostitute. Peeking out from these layers of lip liner, taffeta, and (in one case) demure ventriloquist dummies are the women. The relationship between these women and their feminine trappings circles between tragedy and desire—the pack of uniformed New Zealand schoolgirls moored by natural disaster, and the New York transsexuals liberated with gold lame. Even the seemingly natural shots in the bunch, like Barbara Probst’s photo of two fresh-faced young women under the cables of a bridge, are informed by a final construction: the act of taking the picture.

THE EXHIBITION SHOWS FROM 10 A.M. TO 5 P.M. MONDAY TO SATURDAY AND NOON TO 5 P.M. SUNDAY TO SUNDAY, JAN. 25, 2009 AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS, 1250 NEW YORK AVE. NW. $10. (202) 783-5000."

Anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman dies - washingtonpost.com

Anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman dies - washingtonpost.com: JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Helen Suzman, one of South Africa's foremost anti-apartheid campaigners, has died at the age of 91, the SAPA news agency reported Thursday.

The former politician was publicly critical of apartheid at a time when this was rare among whites. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice and won praise from human rights organizations from around the world.

SAPA quoted her daughter Frances Jowell as saying she died peacefully in her Johannesburg home.

Suzman was for 36 years South Africa's most famous white crusader against apartheid, waging an often lonely parliamentary battle.

She was one of the few whites to earn any respect from black South Africans. Suzman regularly visited jailed black nationalist leader Nelson Mandela, sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964.

Remembering Suzman's first visit with him in B-Section of Robben Island prison, Mandela once said: "It was an odd and wonderful sight to see this courageous woman peering into our cells and strolling around our courtyard. She was the first and only woman ever to grace our cells."

The Nelson Mandela Foundation said South Africa had lost a "great patriot and a fearless fighter against apartheid."