If you know of anyone between 18-28 years old, interested in the Nursing field, University of the District of Columbia (UDC) is offering FREE tuition, FREE books, a $250 monthly stipend, and guaranteed job placement as a nurse at Providence Hospital upon graduation (it's a 3 year program) with a starting salary of $40,000. The program is recruiting new students now!!

Please contact Ms. Beshon Smith (202) 266-5481 or email: Bsmith@urbanalliance.org

Princeton, USC, Penn Among Names to Attend National Gay-Friendly College Fair

Charlotte, NC (PRWEB) March 12, 2008 -- What do Princeton University, Emory University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California and University of Utah have in common? Well, they all want to recruit out lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth and are a few of the colleges to be in attendance at the upcoming Campus Pride College Admission Fair on Friday, April 11 in San Diego, California.

http://www.campuspride.org/

Upcoming Gay-Friendly National College Fair this April 11 in San Diego, CA provides rare opportunity to recruit out lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. In addition, new online LGBT-Friendly Campus Climate Index ranks gay-friendliness of colleges and grows in national attention as more campuses find value in reaching out to this no longer invisible demographic.

"Finally, colleges are coming out of the closet and being visible in the recruitment process to seek LGBT students. Even the nations top colleges realize that being LGBT-friendly is not only in the best interest of enrolment figures but also a necessity to prepare for a smaller, more diverse student population in the future," said Shane Windmeyer, Executive Director of Campus Pride, the leading national nonprofit for LGBT students and campus groups and author of The Advocate College Guide for LGBT Students.

According to Windmeyer, an increasing number of colleges and universities are openly recruiting LGBT students and are doing so for the first time ever. Nearly thirty colleges have registered to date for the upcoming LGBT-friendly college fair sponsored by Campus Pride. In addition, over 150 colleges and universities are reaching out to LGBT students through the LGBT-Friendly Campus Climate Index. The national index, the only resource of its kind, is a dynamic online tool which rates LGBT-friendliness at colleges and universities as well as sets a national benchmark for campuses to become safer, more welcoming for LGBT and ally people. Any campus may take part in the index to be listed online at anytime.

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Wiley College, in Marshall, Texas,  gained international acclaim because of its excellent debating team that defeated Harvard University’s debating team.

By James O. Maxwell

Jubilee Hall - Fisk University

It is difficult to find written in American History textbooks the great contributions that the historically black colleges have made to the well-being and leadership among blacks; in addition, black colleges have made significant contributions to the growth and development of our country as a whole. Most of the movements for the freedom and the human rights of African-American people have been led by those who were trained in part or in whole at predominantly black colleges. Even today, many of the well-known black leaders in our nation were trained in black educational institutions.

Many African-Americans and Caucasians do not know that black colleges were established as early as 1849, although some of those are not in existence today. Institutions such as Morgan State College and Rust College were established as early as 1866 by the Methodist-Episcopal Church. Fisk University was founded in the same year. Howard University was opened in 1867. Tuskegee Institute was founded with only thirty students in 1881. In 1884, Paine College was begun by the Southern Methodist-Episcopal Church. LeMoyne-Owen College and Tougaloo University were founded in 1869. Knoxville College and Bethune-Cookman College were founded in 1875, and Lane College was founded in 1882.

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By Simone Pringle

Bolanle Salaam remembers growing up and sometimes feeling insulted as an African. Salaam, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, has dealt with stereotypes her entire life.

Howard University International Pals Bolanle Salaam "A student I knew was told that he should listen to African music because it was where all music came from. He replied that he tried to listen to it, but all African music sounded like 'boom badda boom,' just random drum noises," said Salaam, a sophomore mathematics major. "I don't think I've ever been so offended in all my life. We need to cut that out. It's nonsense."

Since slavery, there has been a great divide between Africans and their American counterparts. Some African students at Howard often feel stereotyped and mistreated based on misconceptions about their nationality and ethnicity.

Having had similar experiences, junior nursing major and Liberian American Whennah Andrews said, "When I was younger, I can admit that I did feel embarrassed about being African mainly because at that stage of my life, I was really concerned about gaining social acceptance. I believe that is what some students who are first generation African American feel or felt. They feel that the opinions and standards set by their American counterparts are far more superior [to] their ethnic upbringing."

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By KAREN W. ARENSON

Yale said Monday that it would sharply increase financial aid for undergraduates, including those from families with annual incomes up to $200,000, in a bid to ease costs for a broad swath of students.

Yale and other universities with large endowments have been under pressure from Congress to spend more and reduce charges for students. Harvard announced a similar aid expansion in December, saying the policy would cut the cost of attending college to 10 percent of income for a typical family making $120,000 to $180,000 a year.

Last week, Yale said that it would increase its annual spending from its $22.5 billion endowment, freeing up money for more aid.

The president of Yale, Richard C. Levin, said Monday in an interview, “I hope this will send a strong message to people with incomes between $45,000 and $200,000, some of whom at the high end perceive our sticker price as very daunting, that Yale does offer help at that range.”

On average, students who receive financial aid will see their charges drop in half, Mr. Levin said. A family with two children in college, $180,000 in income and $200,000 in assets will sees its Yale bill drop, to $11,650 from $22,300. Full tuition, room and board this year costs $45,000.

Students will still be expected to contribute in addition to parental payment — but the bill will drop to $2,500 next year, down from their $4,400 share of the $45,000 total. Despite other efforts to increase the aid and outreach to low- and middle-income students, Dr. Levin said, “we are still believed in many parts of the country to be inaccessible and too expensive.”

Gilbert Strang is a quiet man with a rare talent: helping others understand linear algebra. He's written a half-dozen popular college textbooks, and for years a few hundred students at the elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been privileged to take his course.

Recently, with the growth of computer science, demand to understand linear algebra has surged. But so has the number of students Strang can teach.

An MIT initiative called "OpenCourseWare" makes virtually all the school's courses available online for free - lecture notes, readings, tests and often video lectures. Strang's Math 18.06 course is among the most popular, with visitors downloading his lectures more than 1.3 million times since June alone.

Strang's classroom is the world.

In his Istanbul dormitory, Kemal Burcak Kaplan, an undergraduate at Bogazici University, downloads Strang's lectures to try to boost his grade in a class there. Outside Calcutta, graduate student Sriram Chandrasekaran uses them to brush up on matrices for his engineering courses at the elite Indian Institute of Technology.

Many "students" are college teachers themselves, like Sheraz ali Khan at a small engineering institute in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Noorali Jiwaji, at the Open University of Tanzania. They use Strang and other MIT professors as guides in designing their own classes, and direct students to MIT's courses for help.

by Kelsey Volkmann

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Creating a diverse population of nurses — beyond the stereotype of a white woman in a white uniform — builds trust among minority patients, research shows.

But in Maryland, where just 19 percent of nurses are black, universities would have to graduate an additional 550 African-American students every year for a decade before the proportion of black nurses would even come close to reflecting the race of the patients they serve.

Health care professionals hope a new nursing program at historically black Morgan State University will help alleviate the state’s nursing shortage, particularly the dearth of black nurses.

“Diversity in nursing is a really serious problem,” said Kathleen Galbraith, director of Morgan’s new nursing program. “African-Americans are extremely under-represented.”

By J. Samuel Cook-Dormoh

The word excites people on both sides of the debate, those who see it as a sacred rite of passage and those who view it as a barbaric form of torture.

Hazing incidents have occurred recently at Jackson State, Florida A&M and Southeast Missouri State universities, all involving black students. The incidents have placed the spotlight on initiation practices among the historically black fraternities and sororities that comprise the "Divine Nine" as well as some of the marching bands.

A study published in College Student Journal in 2001 found African American students have "more positive beliefs about the purpose of pledging" and are more likely to support and conform to pledging practices. According to the study, African Americans also held a significant belief that hazing processes should be intense, difficult and lengthy. The study also reported that African-American students had more positive perceptions of Greek organizations compared to white and Hispanic students.

Dr. Alvin T. Simpson, a professor of psychology at Alcorn State University and member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., agreed that African-Americans are more likely to engage in or accept hazing as a means of joining fraternities or sororities because they are looking for an identity. He also said that brutal or intense hazing rituals are rooted in the tradition of slavery.

By Kelsey Volkmann 

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - More than 1 in 4 black freshmen at Maryland's public colleges last year dropped out after their first year, the most in 17 years, a new report reveals.

“What's happening to African-American males is a tragedy, but we can't just keep talking about it being a tragedy,” said James Lyons Sr., state higher education secretary. “Working slowly to address these issues is one thing, but moving backward is another.”

About 28 percent of African-American students don’t return for a second year, according to the 2007 Performance Accountability Report for Maryland Public Colleges and Universities.

By Sal Ruibal

The word Bermuda conjures images of crisp knee-high shorts and croquet balls rolling on impossibly green grass. If the man who runs the 23-square-mile island nation 600 miles east of North Carolina has his way, however, Bermuda could also become famous for college basketball players in knee-length shorts scrambling for the ball on hardwood floors.

Dr. Ewart Brown, Premier of this self-governing British Overseas Territory, is leaving his emerald isle this week to scout the Big Apple Classic on Saturday at New York City's famed Madison Square Garden. The one-day event pits Virginia Union against Bowie State and Hampton vs. Howard.

Brown is no stranger to the four historically black universities: In the 1960s he earned both a B.S. in chemistry and a medical doctorate at Howard, where he also ran on the school's track team.

By Kailyn Hart

For many students college life may be a safe haven to experience homosexual desires. Within the confines of Howard University, students are concerned with the high number of bisexual and/or gay men and women.

Due to mixed feelings and fast spreading rumors, students are paranoid about the notion of homosexual relations taking place at Howard University.
 

J.D. Brown, a 21-year-old student in the College of Arts and Sciences, said, "There are a great number of men on campus who are involved in the gay, bisexual or 'downlow' lifestyle. I feel as though walking up to any Howard man, there's at least a 50/50 chance that he has or does engage in homosexual activity, but many of my gay friends feel that the percentage is much higher."

However, according to recent studies, all people have the potential to harbor homosexual desires.

By J. Samuel Cook-Dormoh

Hazing--the word excites people on both sides of the debate, those who see it as a sacred rite of passage and those who view it as a barbaric form of torture.

Hazing incidents have occurred recently at Jackson State, Florida A&M and Southeast Missouri State universities, all involving black students. The incidents have placed the spotlight on initiation practices among the historically black fraternities and sororities that comprise the "Divine Nine" as well as some of the marching bands.

A study published in College Student Journal in 2001 found African American students have "more positive beliefs about the purpose of pledging" and are more likely to support and conform to pledging practices. According to the study, African Americans also held a significant belief that hazing processes should be intense, difficult and lengthy. The study also reported that African-American students had more positive perceptions of Greek organizations compared to white and Hispanic students.

Dr. Alvin T. Simpson, a professor of psychology at Alcorn State University and member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., agreed that African-Americans are more likely to engage in or accept hazing as a means of joining fraternities or sororities because they are looking for an identity. He also said that brutal or intense hazing rituals are rooted in the tradition of slavery.

"Based on some of the historical events that happened during slavery, one expression that a lot of black males use to demonstrate their level of empowerment or level of masculinity is to present it during this type of initiation or process leading to initiation into a fraternity," he said. "I strongly believe that it, too, represents something that heightens the esteem of males making them feel as if they are 'better than' and they also have dominion over someone else temporarily."

Both hazing and pledging were abolished in 2000 in a joint effort by the National Pan-Hellenic Council . Though prohibited among the national offices of each black fraternity and sorority, hazing is viewed by some members of the African American Greek community as a rite of passage for prospective members.

By ADAM GOLDMAN

NEW YORK (AP) — The president of Columbia University's Teachers College sent an e-mail to students and faculty members deploring the discovery of a hangman's noose on the office door of a black professor.

Police are investigating the incident as a hate crime, and Columbia planned a town hall meeting Wednesday afternoon for faculty and students to address the incident.

The university did not immediately say which professor was targeted, but she was identified in the local media as Madonna Constantine, a professor of psychology and education and author of a book entitled "Addressing Racism: Facilitating Cultural Competence in Mental Health and Educational Settings."

By Batsheva Pomerantz

When underachieving fourth graders in Bridgeport, Connecticut recently spent three days undergoing a battery of educational tests, they not only had fun but they perceived themselves in a totally new and positive way. One of the students, Tyheem, wrote in appreciation: "...thanks for everything. You made my brain strong."

These students of African American and Hispanic background were part of a pilot project using a novel Israeli-developed system of cognitive assessment developed by the Jerusalem-based International Center for the Enhancement of Learning Potential (ICELP)

The testing preceded the recently signed partnership between the ICELP and the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education (NUA). Plans are underway to start implementing the partnership in 20 US cities in the near future.

Helping African American males succeed in urban schools can seem like an intractable problem, but applying some basic principles that empower teachers and students is a key part of the answer, finds Vanderbilt University education researcher H. Richard Milner. In a new article in the journal Theory Into Practice, he argues that teachers and school leaders must move beyond making excuses to turn around failing schools.


“Many black males have been what I call kidnapped into believing that they are inferior and unable to succeed in school,” Milner said. “Teachers have these same misconceptions, and it spills over into their teaching. Both teachers and students need to develop positive images of these students’ abilities to realize how bright their futures can be.”

The nation's first and largest African American inter-collegiate Greek-lettered fraternity celebrated its 101st anniversary celebration through word and deed.

Charlotte, NC - The nation's first and largest African American inter-collegiate Greek-lettered fraternity celebrated its 101st anniversary celebration through word and deed.

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. concluded its 101st anniversary celebration Tuesday, August 14th in Orlando, FL. More than 3,000 attendees participated in business sessions, seminars, service initiatives, and special ceremonies. The theme, “A New Century of Alpha: Setting the Standard for Leadership and Service,” was echoed throughout the convention as the fraternity took steps to promote social change in the African-American community.

Homophobic comments fuel campus debate over tolerance

BY MIKE ALBERTI

Twenty young people from around the nation gathered on the N.C. State University campus earlier this month for the Campaign to End AIDS Youth Action Institute.

They came to learn the ins and outs of AIDS advocacy, but in addition to lessons in attracting media attention and lobbying politicians, some NCSU students gave them an education in intolerance.

Institute participant Brett Calka was sitting outside the dorm where his group was staying for the week, smoking a cigarette with a friend and minding his own business on the third day of the conference.

"We began to hear someone yelling from another building in front of us," said Calka, a 23-year-old from Chicago. "At first, I couldn't hear what they were saying, but then I heard the words 'faggot' and 'sissy.'" Calka could not identify who was yelling because the blinds were drawn over the windows.

by dsinger@wtvm.com

Black college enrollment is up significantly. For the first time, the number of African American college students in the South is the same as the region's population. The report by the Southern Regional Education Board was released Monday. 16 states were measured, including Georgia and Alabama.

The African American population at Columbus State University is growing. Since 2002, black enrollment has increased by 50 percent. Those students make up 32 percent of the population.

A New Jersey school Superintendent has apologised to a student after a photo of him kissing his boyfriend was struck from all 230 copies produced.

When Newark Superintendent of Schools Marion Bolden saw the photo of openly gay East Side High School student Andre Jackson kissing his boyfriend on a page of the school yearbook which Jackson had purchased, she ordered the photos to be blackened out with a marker pen.

The photo was on a page in a "tribute" section of the book, in which students purchase pages for $150 (in addition to the $85 cost of the yearbook) and are able to post photos of themselves and friends.