Equity Training and Development Team

MSIs To Get New Help in Going ‘Green’

2009-11-14T12:03:00.000-05:00

MSIs To Get New Help in Going ‘Green’: A new grant to the United Negro College Fund should help a cross-section of minority-serving institutions - including Hispanic-serving universities and tribal colleges - promote environmentally friendly building practices in the years ahead.

The $1.8 million grant from The Kresge Foundation will go to UNCF for the Building Green at Minority-Serving Institutions Initiative. The chief goals are to build knowledge and capacity so these under-resourced colleges and universities can build faculty expertise and develop more sustainable, energy-efficient facilities.

The goal is for MSIs to build 'better, smarter, more intelligent' buildings, said William F.L. Moses, program director at the foundation. While environmentally friendly, such buildings also can reduce long-term operating costs by up to 50 percent through less use of electricity and water.

'Minority-serving institutions want and need to become as green as possible as fast as possible,' said Michael Lomax, UNCF president and chief executive officer.

The Unfinished Business of HBCUs

2009-11-14T12:01:00.001-05:00

The Unfinished Business of HBCUs: Public historically Black colleges and universities have served the under-represented well in the years since Adams v. Richardson, but states can no longer continue to underfund HBCUs if these schools are to become 'comparable and competitive' with traditionally White institutions, a panel of former and current HBCU leaders concluded Thursday at a conference at Morgan State University.

'The magnitude of disparity between public HBCUs and historically White institutions remains particularly great,' said Lezli Baskerville, president and chief executive officer of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, the facilitator of the Presidential Round Table panel entitled 'The Unfinished Business of Parity in the Adams States: The Promise and the Perils.'

The problem is, 'public higher education is disengaging from educating the growing populations in their states,' she said, referring to African American, Latino and Asian American populations.

In the nearly 40 years since the Adams case, which required federal education officials to monitor the desegregation of public colleges in states with separate higher education systems for Blacks and Whites, little has been done to make HBCUs truly competitive. Inequitable public funding, program duplication at nearby schools, and a reluctance to fully integrate the student bodies are among the problems holding back HBCUs, the panel said.

Minorities use the Web to adjust the color on TV - washingtonpost.com

2009-11-14T08:13:00.002-05:00

Minorities use the Web to adjust the color on TV - washingtonpost.com: ... Web television has been around since the '90s, but in the past year edgy new shows by, for and about minorities are proliferating on the Internet. Many of the new series take the form of webisodes -- episodes that usually last about five minutes, aimed at the short-attention spans of the all-mighty Millennium Generation.

"You can look at this as revolutionary," says Jonathan Moore, founder and CEO of Rowdy Orbit, which was launched in February. "It is giving people a voice and a platform to express themselves without judgment or red tape holding you down. Now they can go from idea to production to distribution."

For years, minority writers, producers and actors have complained about the lack of diversity on television. Last year, the NAACP Hollywood bureau criticized a "virtual whiteout" in broadcast television. "At a time when the country is excited about the election of the first African American president in U.S. history, it is unthinkable that minorities would be so grossly underrepresented on broadcast television," NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous said in a statement.

Robert Thompson, a white professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, says the lack of diversity in programming is counterintuitive, given the breakthrough success of programs such as "Roots" and "The Cosby Show." "The general politics of people who run television may have at some point been close to admitting diversity and people of color, but the fact remains when the NAACP did its report, the results were shocking," says Thompson.

New Study Examines Gender-based Pay Gaps in Academia

2009-11-13T00:14:00.001-05:00

New Study Examines Gender-based Pay Gaps in Academia: A paper in the new issue of Psychology of Women Quarterly examines gender-based pay gaps among U.S. faculty using two methodologies. The multiple regression and resampling simulation approaches are different, yet they lead to the same conclusion - a gender-based pay gap exists.

The paper's three authors are faculty at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. The study focuses on quantitative data gathered from the university's 14 colleges. Dr. Cheryl B. Travis, who is associated with the psychology and women's studies departments, says Tennessee has conducted salary studies for many years. This paper includes a new statistical methodology conceptualized by co-author Dr. Louis J. Gross of the Departments of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Mathematics.

'We wanted to do a salary study using his new methodology, resampling, and have a comparable standard multiple regression study to see would they find similar outcomes,' Travis says.

Schools Shun Kindle, Saying Blind Can't Use It

2009-11-13T00:13:00.001-05:00

Schools Shun Kindle, Saying Blind Can't Use It: SAN FRANCISCO--Amazon's Kindle can read books aloud, but if you're blind it can be difficult to turn that function on without help. Now two universities say they will shun the device until Amazon changes the setup.

The National Federation of the Blind announced Wednesday that the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Syracuse University in New York state won't consider big rollouts of the electronic reading device unless Amazon makes it more accessible to visually impaired students.

Both schools have some Kindles that they bought for students to try this fall, but now they say they won't look into buying more unless Amazon makes changes to the device.

CSU Chancellor Expects Minority Enrollment to Remain Steady Amid Budget Cuts

2009-11-11T06:08:00.002-05:00

CSU Chancellor Expects Minority Enrollment to Remain Steady Amid Budget Cuts: Despite massive cuts and closed enrollments at the California State University system, the percentage of minority students is not expected to drop, Chancellor Charles B. Reed said Tuesday in a press briefing.

“We are going to try not to do that,” Dr. Reed said to Diverse. He notes that some 54 percent of the system’s 450,000 students are “people of color” and that no changes in that level are expected. “We are holding workshops and are holding meetings to make sure of this,” he said.

Even so, the nation’s largest university system is undergoing unprecedented stress as it tries to cope with California’s budget crisis. A $564 million budget reduction is forcing to school to raise fees, furlough staff and close enrollments.

Chantilly Pyramid Minority Student Achievement Committee Celebrates 25th Anniversary

2009-11-09T18:11:00.001-05:00

Chantilly Pyramid Minority Student Achievement Committee Celebrates 25th Anniversary: The Chantilly Pyramid Student Achievement Committee celebrated its 25th anniversary Sunday in Fairfax, Va. Since its founding by late Chantilly High School (Chantilly, Va.) Parent-Teacher Association member Shirley O. Nelson in 1984, the Committee - an organization of parents working in partnership with Fairfax County Public Schools and the community to help minority students improve their academic aspirations - has evolved from an ad hoc church committee to a 501 tax-exempt nonprofit with an all-volunteer 15-member executive board and approximately 100 members annually.

Mixed Race Americans And A 'Blended Nation' : NPR

2009-11-08T10:20:00.000-05:00

Mixed Race Americans And A 'Blended Nation' : NPR: The 2000 U.S. census was the first to give Americans the option to check more than one box for race. Nearly 7 million people declared themselves to be multiracial, a number that's expected to shoot up in the 2010 count. As more of the nation's population identifies itself as of mixed race, the authors of a new book say Americans' ideas of racial identity are in for a challenge.

Comedian urges Hispanic students to stay in school - washingtonpost.com

2009-11-08T09:26:00.001-05:00

Comedian urges Hispanic students to stay in school - washingtonpost.com: Los Angeles comedian Ernie G has a message for first-generation college-bound students in Washington.

'No matter how much education you get and how much success you achieve, if you grew up in the barrio, if you grew up in the 'hood, you will always have a little ghetto in you.'

The message is not meant to discourage. It's meant to show that college and ghetto can coexist.

The self-described Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Russian, French, Catholic Jew (G stands for Gritzewsky) is the spokesman for the Washington-based Hispanic College Fund. He's also a comedian who is moving from the nightclub circuit to the high school circuit so he can encourage the country's fastest-growing group of high school students to stay in school and go to college.

One in five Hispanic teens drops out of high school, according to U.S. Education Department statistics. That's about twice the rate for black students and more than three times the rate among white students. Only 12 percent of Hispanics ages 25 to 29 have a bachelor's degree or higher, compared with 31 percent of the general population, according to an analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center.

Tribal Leaders: ‘We Need to be Respected’

2009-11-06T11:20:00.001-05:00

Tribal Leaders: ‘We Need to be Respected’: WASHINGTON - Before the largest gathering of tribal leaders in U.S. history Thursday, President Barack Obama pledged $50 million in funding for tribal colleges and vowed his administration would work to address problems facing Native Americans, from health disparities to economic development.

At the Tribal Nations Conference, held at the Department of the Interior, the president also signed a memorandum calling on every cabinet agency to give him a detailed plan to improve the relationship between the government and tribal communities.

'You will not be forgotten as long as I'm in this White House,' Obama said to a sustained ovation.

Tribal leaders and Native American scholars had expressed optimism about the outcome of Obama's tribal conference, but some remain skeptical that the administration can bring about substantive changes.

Racism without racists - Short Stack

2009-11-05T17:13:00.000-05:00

Racism without racists - Short Stack: Racism without racists

Rich Benjamin spent two years traveling through white America and discovered a country filled with kind and endearing white individuals. In his book 'Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America,' published by Hyperion in October, Benjamin reveals that he also found something else: a legacy of racial segregation and division resulting from habits, policies, and institutions that don't explicitly discriminate. In the following contribution, Benjamin, a senior fellow at Demos, a nonpartisan think tank, describes the nature of structural racism.

First Chinese-American Congresswoman in US sworn in CCTV-International

2009-11-05T12:07:00.001-05:00

First Chinese-American Congresswoman in US sworn in CCTV-International: Judy Chu, Congresswoman, Democrat-California, said, 'Thank you. I'm so honored to be here. This is an overwhelming moment and I'm very humbled and honored to be here serving Congressional District 32, and to be here at a time of great change.'

Asked about the influence of her Chinese background, Chu said it benefits her greatly.

Judy Chu, Congresswoman, Democrat-California, said,'I think that many Chinese-Americans have suffered hardships in coming to America.'

Chu said her major task now is to help push forward the medical reform plans in Congress.

Before Chu, only two male Chinese-Americans have served in the US Congress. The House praised Chu for her 24 years' dedication to public service and commitment to the essential issues of the American nation, such as its economic strength, education of children and the health of all Americans.

Television - Same Street, Different World - ‘Sesame’ Turns 40 - NYTimes.com

2009-11-05T09:25:00.002-05:00

Television - Same Street, Different World - ‘Sesame’ Turns 40 - NYTimes.com: IT is almost too perfect that the first African-American president of the United States was elected in time for the 40th anniversary of “Sesame Street.” The world is finally beginning to look the way that PBS show always made it out to be.

So it is to the credit of this daunting cultural landmark — a program that has taught generations of children to count, countless parents how to teach and is seen in 125 countries around the world — that Tuesday’s anniversary is not a frenzy of preening self-celebration. Episode No. 4187 is as child-centric and respectful of routine as any other.

The special guest — the first lady, Michelle Obama — doesn’t make her appearance alongside Big Bird until midway into a show crammed with the usual preschool didactics. The letter of the day comes first — H as in help and hug and healthy.

The only real difference is that on this day, viewers have to count to 40

Sports of The Times - Sluggish Pace of Integration in Baseball Still Echoes - NYTimes.com

2009-11-05T05:41:00.002-05:00

Sports of The Times - Sluggish Pace of Integration in Baseball Still Echoes - NYTimes.com: ... Bernard Diggs is a 61-year-old Philadelphian who is a die-hard Eagles fan. But he has no bond with the Phillies, a coolness that stems from the history of the 1950s and not just the whimsy of a boy who liked one team’s colors over another.

For Diggs, the problem has always been the Phillies’ failure to integrate until almost every other major league club had already done so. In 2009, two of the Phillies’ stars — Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins — are African-Americans, which puts Philadelphia ahead of many other teams. Still, their presence has not swayed Diggs.

“They seem like the kind of folks I would like to meet,” Diggs said of the two players. “I really do like them as individuals in terms of their contribution to the Phillies and how they carry themselves.”

So how would he explain to them why he has not pulled for their team during the World Series — or ever, for that matter?

“I’d give them a history lesson,” Diggs said.

Reporter’s Query

2009-11-05T05:06:00.000-05:00

Reporter’s Query: Does it seem like, during hard economic times, diversity initiatives are the first to go? A good number of students and faculty from colleges and universities around the country have started to cry foul because many of budget cuts have come in diversity-themed offices and among their staff. Diverse is documenting these cuts but we need your help. Have you heard about diversity/equity cutting or downsizing at your institution? Have these programs/offices/departments been disproportionately affected by the cost-cutting efforts? Share your story or tip with Arelis Hernandez at ahernandez@diverseeducation.com.

Confinement Too Costly For Middle-class Black Women

2009-11-05T05:01:00.001-05:00

Confinement Too Costly For Middle-class Black Women: When Dr. Lisa B. Thompson names modern women who fit the iconic 'Black lady' mold - Coretta Scott King, Anita Hill, Condoleezza Rice and Michelle Obama - you know exactly whom she is trying to liberate. Chances are your mother played this role. You probably do, too, if you are a Black woman involved in higher education.

It is time for middle-class Black women to break the mold, Thompson argues in her book, 'Beyond the Black Lady, Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class' (New Black Studies Series), University of Illinois Press. Being this 'lady' is not all it is cracked up to be. The role is far too confining, and it comes at the high cost of denying any claim to what she calls 'sexual agency.' Such women do so in a valiant effort to 'uplift the race' by countering intractable stereotypes of Black women as 'promiscuous, seductive and sexually irresponsible,' she writes.

To pull it off, they 'have to be so morally upright they are almost inhuman,' she tells Diverse.

NFL player from Sierra Leone gives $2 million to U-Md. - washingtonpost.com

2009-11-05T04:44:00.001-05:00

NFL player from Sierra Leone gives $2 million to U-Md. - washingtonpost.com: At 9, Madieu Williams immigrated to Prince George's County from Sierra Leone, one of the poorest nations on Earth. The move gave his family a sense of perspective. His mother told him over and over that if he ever found himself in a position to make a difference, he should do it.

At 28, Williams finds himself in a relatively prosperous position: He plays free safety for the Minnesota Vikings. And Wednesday, he made a difference.

In a morning news conference, the University of Maryland announced the creation of the Madieu Williams Center for Global Health Initiatives. The former U-Md. star is providing a $2 million endowment. It is the largest gift to the flagship school from an African American alumnus and the largest sum donated by someone so young.

Staten Island Elects Its First Black Council Member - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com

2009-11-04T19:51:00.001-05:00

Staten Island Elects Its First Black Council Member - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com: Staten Island has long been unique in this racially diverse city: a borough where whites constitute the vast majority. But over the last few decades and particularly in recent years, people of other races have been increasingly calling the island home.

From 1990 to 2000, the percentage of residents who identified themselves as black increased to 8.9 percent from 7.4 percent, according to census data [pdf], and in the most recent survey from 2008, the figure increased to 10.1 percent.

Now, for the first time, Staten Island will have a black City Council member. Deborah L. Rose, a Democrat who also ran with the backing of the Working Families Party, easily won the race on Tuesday with 57.3 percent of the vote, with the rest split by candidates on the Republican and Conservative lines.

A lifelong Staten Island resident who was a longtime member of Community Board 1 and runs a program at the College of Staten Island that discourages local students from dropping out of high school, Ms. Rose was making her third bid for City Council.

Obama To Host Nation-To-Nation Conference

2009-11-04T15:02:00.001-05:00

Obama To Host Nation-To-Nation Conference: President Barack Obama on Thursday will host the White House Tribal Nations Conference, meeting with representatives from the 564 federally recognized tribes.

'I look forward to hearing directly from the leaders in Indian Country about what my administration can do to not only meet their needs but help improve their lives and the lives of their peoples. This conference will serve as part of the ongoing and important consultation process that I value, and further strengthen the Nation-to-Nation relationship,' Obama said last month in announcing the conference.

“From what I understand, 90 percent of our tribal leaders are going. We’re looking forward to this historical event,” said Darrell Flyingman, governor of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, according to Native American Times.

The meeting is long overdue, Muscogee Creek Nation Principal Chief A.D. Ellis, told the publication.

U.S. May Not be Lagging Behind Internationally, Report Says

2009-11-04T15:00:00.001-05:00

U.S. May Not be Lagging Behind Internationally, Report Says: The headlines are emblazoned with the gloomy tales of America’s academic decline as drop-out rates skyrocket and adult educational attainment sags behind international competitors, but one educational statistician, in a newly released report, said it's nothing more than propaganda.

“They quote this stuff because people like to be told how bad they are. We get hung up on how bad we are doing,” said Dr. Cliff Adelman, senior associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy and a former researcher at the U.S. Department of Education. “I’m not out to tell you how good you are, but to provide an honest picture as opposed to a purposely dishonest picture.”

For the past couple of years, international education agencies have monitored the degree-completion numbers as nations like Canada, Korea and Japan caught up with the United States. In all those countries, the proportion of the population earning bachelor’s degrees or their equivalent increased while the U.S. seemed to drop in the rankings.

Justice of the Peace who refused to marry interracial couple resigns -

2009-11-04T07:03:00.002-05:00

Justice of the Peace who refused to marry interracial couple resigns -: The Louisiana Justice of the peace who refused to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple has resigned, WDSU reports.

Louisiana Secretary of State's Office spokesman Jacques Berry said Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwelll's resignation is effective Tuesday, WDSU says.

Republican Gov Bobby Jindal and Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu had both called for Bardwell to step down.

The Associated Press reports that Bardwell offered only a one sentence statement to Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne and no explanation of his decision: "I do hereby resign the office of Justice of the Peace for the Eighth Ward of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, effective November 3, 2009."

The controversy in Hammond, La., erupted after Bardwell refused to issue a marriage license to a white woman and a black man. They were later married by another official.

Bardwell denied that he was a racist and said his concern is with the impact that an interracial marriage has on children. He says he has married white couples and black couples, but refers interracial couples to another JP.

Schools improve certification for school lunches - washingtonpost.com

2009-11-04T06:22:00.000-05:00

Schools improve certification for school lunches - washingtonpost.com: WASHINGTON -- Schools are doing a better job of identifying students who are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches, but some states are much better than others, the Agriculture Department says in a report to Congress.

In 2008-2009, 78 percent of schools identified eligible students by using government records of which households already receive aid like food stamps. Use of the so-called direct certification method, the most efficient way to enroll school children in subsidized lunch programs, was up 11 percentage points from the previous year, according to the report, which is being delivered to Congress on Tuesday. A copy was obtained by The Associated Press.

40 years after riots, Pa. city elects black mayor - washingtonpost.com

2009-11-04T05:26:00.001-05:00

40 years after riots, Pa. city elects black mayor - washingtonpost.com: YORK, Pa. -- The central Pennsylvania city of York has elected its first black mayor, 40 years after violent race riots led to the death of a white police officer and a black woman.

Democrat Kim Bracey beat Republican Wendell Banks in Tuesday's general election. Democratic voters in York outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1.

Bracey is the city's former director of community development.

York was the site of weeks of race rioting in 1969. The killings of a white police officer and black woman went unsolved for decades.

Bracey says she embraces the significance of her election. She calls it a historic accomplishment and says she's pleased voters trust her to lead the city.

Diary of a Mad Black Professor: A Critical Race Therapy Moment

2009-11-03T23:15:00.001-05:00

Diary of a Mad Black Professor: A Critical Race Therapy Moment: ...Critical Race Therapy

So how does one go about negotiating this madness? Madness intervention. For me, it has been through years of a critical form of interventional therapy — critical race therapy — coupled with large doses of creative extremism to reduce the possibility of the onset of an early relapse or, worse yet, living the simple life of a pathetic assimilationist.

CRT is the sort of therapy that one uses to combat racial battle fatigue, microaggressions, nihilism, paradigmatic shift lag, white supremacy, racial commodification and a host of other race-related illnesses. I think folks stumble upon the cure by accident, but are unfamiliar with the name for the therapy. After all, you cannot find a critical race therapist in the phone book and there are no formal CRT support groups — at least that I know of. Nevertheless, I can point out instances when I have seen critical race therapy working at its best.

New Hampshire Scholar-Lawmaker Wants Monument to Slaves

2009-11-03T23:02:00.001-05:00

New Hampshire Scholar-Lawmaker Wants Monument to Slaves: CONCORD, N.H.- In 1779, Prince Whipple and a small group of other New Hampshire slaves petitioned the state Legislature to free them.

Whipple eventually was freed by his owner, not the Legislature, which ignored the petition and did not ban slavery in New Hampshire until 1857. By then, census records showed no slaves remained in the state.

Now 230 years later, state Rep. Dr. David Watters wants New Hampshire to create a monument to acknowledge and commemorate New Hampshire's slaves.

'There's no public place we can acknowledge and recognize this history,' said Watters, D-Dover.

Watters' bill would establish a commission to research the names and numbers of people enslaved in New Hampshire from 1645 to 1840, the year the last record of a slave was noted by a census-taker at B.G. Searle's farm in Hollis.