Fall 2010 NCCU NOW Magazine

NOW

NCCU A magazine for the Faculty, Alumni, and Friends of North Carolina Central University

FALL 2010

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To worship the Lord in joy

21 Sports News

28

A Powerful Debut

32

Raising the Bar

Contents 3

Celebrating the Century

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To Worship the Lord in Joy

17 21 24

HBCUs Chart a Course for the Future Membership has its Privileges Campus News

26

California, Here We Come!

28

A Powerful Debut

32

Raising the Bar

36

A Testament to our Excellence

41

Class Notes

44

Gifts to the University

46

Joyner gives NCCU a Boost

ON THE COVER The Centennial Chapel was moved to its Fayetteville Street location from Alston Avenue.

Chancellor Charlie Nelms cuts the cake at the July 8 Birthday Bash Now Magazine

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Letter from the Chancellor Dear Alumni and Friends: Welcome to the Fall 2010 issue of NCCU NOW. Under the leadership of Vice Chancellor Kevin Rome in Student Affairs, we have two projects in the works directed to AfricanAmerican males. You will read about them in the pages of this magazine so I won’t give it all away here, but I am delighted by the Centennial Scholars’ 86 percent first-to-second-year retention rate.

Our University of North Carolina system-mandated goals include an 80 percent first-to-second-year retention rate for all of our student body, and a six-year graduation rate of 53 percent, by 2012. We are seeking to use the lessons learned from the Centennial Scholars initiative to help us achieve substantial increases in our retention and graduation rates across the campus.

Chancellor Charlie Nelms Editors Cynthia Fobert Rob Waters Class Notes Anita B. Walton Sports Editor Kyle Serba Photography and Illustration Robert Lawson Brian Culbreath Writers Paul Brown Charlie Nelms Kyle Serba Anita Walton Rob Waters Myra Wooten Design and Layout Brian Culbreath

Degree attainment is the first priority of this administration, and the university is adopting a culture of student success by ensuring that all of our operations are modified, updated and streamlined with that goal in mind. From the Chancellor’s office to Housekeeping Services, everyone plays a part in developing and sustaining the necessary change. We’re in this together.

NCCU Now magazine is published by North Carolina Central University Office of Public Relations, 1801 Fayetteville Street, Durham, NC 27707. Phone: (919) 530-6295 E-mail: <publicrelations@nccu.edu> Please send address corrections to the Alumni Relations Office, 2223 Fayetteville Street, Durham, NC 27707.

I have asked my colleagues to frame their goals and objectives with consideration to the overarching imperative of student achievement. At our Fall Convocation, I reminded the students their destination must be graduation. People deliver on what they are held accountable for, and there is a new emphasis on accountability at NCCU.

At a cost of $0.91 each, 25,000 copies of this public document were printed for a total of $22,752.64 in Fall 2010.

We are working hard to serve these students as if our future depended on it — because it does.

Sincerely,

Charlie Nelms Chancellor 2

Contributors

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Persons or corporations interested in purchasing advertising space in the NCCU Now magazine should contact Cynthia Fobert, director of Public Relations, <cfobert@nccu.edu>.

NCCU is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award baccalaureate, master’s, education specialist, and doctoral degrees.

Contact the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097 or call 404-679-4500 for questions about the accreditation of NCCU. Copyright 2010, North Carolina Central University.

Celebrating the Century

A Gala, a birthday party, and a serious symposium wrap up the Centennial year

By Paul V. Brown, Jr.

I

f you live to be 100, your birthday party ought to be a humdinger!

For North Carolina Central University’s Centennial, the milestone was marked by a glittering formal gala, the first presentations of the Shepard Medallion, a gathering of the noted scholars focused on the future of historically black universities, and an afternoon visit by the governor of North Carolina.

The Centennial began with Charter Day on June 30, 2009, which commemorated

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the signing of the articles of incorporation of the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race, the precursor of NCCU. Other high notes of the year included a February Lyceum lecture by Dr. Ben Carson, the noted pediatric neurosurgeon at The Johns Hopkins Hospital; the unveiling of a handmade quilt, with scenes from NCCU’s history, installed in the Shepard Library; and the publication of a short history of the university, titled “Soaring on the Legacy: A Concise History of North Carolina Central

Scenes from the May 22 Centennial Gala at the Durham Performing Arts Center. Top left: Shepard Medallion recipient Peggy Ward and husband Michael Longhurst. Top right: NCCU Board of Trustees Member Kay Thomas and husband Donald.

Bottom left: former vice chancellor of Academic Affairs Cecil Paterson and wife Vivian. Center left: Ellain McGee Brooks, left, and Jeanetta Nelms.

NCCU played host June 3 and 4 to the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Symposium (see separate article on Page 17). Speakers and attendees included, clockwise from top right: John Silvanus Wilson, executive director, White House Initiative on HBCUs; Dr. Edward St. John, University of Michigan; NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms; Dr. Pauletta Bracy, director of NCCU’s Office of University Accreditation and a principal organizer of the symposium; Roderick McDavis, president of Ohio University; Brian Kennedy II, NCCU student government vice president. At center is Belle S. Wheelan, president of the Commission on Colleges, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

University.” A copy was presented to each member of the 2010 graduating class in May. On May 22, the university hosted the Centennial Gala, a formal reception at the new Durham Performing Arts Center. More than 500 guests representing academia, industry and government from across the state attended. The highlight of the evening was the presentation of The Shepard Medallion, a newly created honor, to six people whose

lives and careers exemplify NCCU’s motto, “Truth and Service.” The six were: Mattie R. Sharpless, former U.S. Ambassador to Central African Republic; Peggy M. Ward, an award-winning insurance agent and former NCCU trustee; state Rep. H.M. Michaux Jr.; and Chancellors Emeriti Julius L. Chambers, LeRoy T. Walker and Albert N. Whiting.

Each was presented with a threeinch bronze medallion bearing the image of NCCU’s founder.

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NCCU wrapped up the yearlong Centennial celebration on July 8 with a Birthday Bash — balloons, cakes, dedications and congratulations from Gov. Bev Perdue (left).

Bottom: Rep. H.M. “Mickey” Michaux, Jr. (center-right) offered greetings and to his right, Mr. Michael King, acting postmaster, United States Postal Service, stands beside the image of the design of the special postmark created for the occasion.

On June 3 and 4, Nelms presided over the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Symposium, which brought together national education leaders, including Arne Duncan, the U.S. Secretary of Education.

Its subtitle, “Setting the Agenda for Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” signaled Nelms’ desire for the symposium to be far more than a onetime event. The chancellor plans to use the symposium as a springboard to develop policies and initiatives to strengthen the leadership, scholarship and fundraising at schools rooted in the African-American community.

Gov. Bev Perdue held center stage on July 8 as the university put on its Centennial Birthday Bash, the last in a series of planned events marking the 100th anniversary of NCCU’s founding. Perdue noted the difficulty under which NCCU was born and blossomed, and applauded its present-day distinction as one of the leading institutions nationally in improving students’ chances of gaining a diploma.

“This university is recognized as one of the top universities in America for improving your college graduation rates,” she told a crowd of several hundred crowded in front of the podium on a closed-off Fayetteville Street. “Not one of the best in the RTP, not one of the best in North Carolina, but one of the very best in the nation, because of all of you all who demand that when a kid comes here to school that they come here with a purpose and that they come to graduate.”

“Happy Birthday, Central,” she yelled to the crowd. “North Carolina and America are mighty proud of you!”

The party coincided with the NCCU Alumni Association’s national convention, 6

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a three-day gathering of alumni and alumni chapters. Among a long list of official and fun events, the convention included service projects that alumni performed for the campus and the wider community.

The bash included the unveiling of a special U.S. Postal Service cancellation stamp commemorating the centennial.

Chancellor Charlie Nelms and descendants of NCCUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s founder, Dr. James E. Shepard, helped dedicate a new Centennial Garden and the Centennial Chapel â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the former

Holy Cross Catholic Church, moved from its Alston Avenue location. Additional historical markers were unveiled at the Shepard House and the site of the old Hillside High School, now the location of the Mary M. Townes Science Building.

Top Left: Among other scenes of the Birthday Bash is the photo of Little Miss NCCU and Mr. NCCU, Deja and Omari Scott, who led children from the NCCU Preschool program in the singing of Happy Birthday.

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The congregation that long made its home in the little stone church has its own tale of survival

to worship the Lord in joy

By Rob Waters

I

t’s hard to find anyone at North Carolina Central University, or even in all of Durham, who isn’t pleased at the sight on Fayetteville Street of the little stone church building that is now called Centennial Chapel.

But “pleased” doesn’t begin to describe the feelings of some longtime members of Holy Cross Catholic Church.

“To see it on Fayetteville Street makes my heart sing,” says Joyce Ellis, an English instructor at NCCU since the 1970s who first attended services in the church during her student days.

“It’s a wonderful thing,” adds George Thorne, 84, a retired vice chancellor of finance at the university, and a Holy Cross member since he was a student in the 1940s. “When I go by on the street, it brings back fond memories.”

When the Holy Cross congregation moved to a new, larger church down the road in 2006 and the university took possession of the old church property on Alston Avenue, it seemed only a matter of time before the wrecking ball arrived. It took some creative thinking, a special appropriation from the state legislature and months of planning (see accompanying story) to save the building.

There is, however, an even more remarkable survival tale than that of the church building. That tale belongs to the congregation that worshiped in it for 53 years.

One of six survivors

At the time of its founding, in 1939, Holy Cross was one of several dozen Catholic churches in North Carolina established for African-Americans during the Jim Crow era. Today, only six remain — all integrated to varying degrees.

William F. Powers, author of Tar Heel Catholics, a history of

Catholicism in North Carolina published in 2003, describes Holy Cross as “a remnant of the age of segregation when every major town in North Carolina had a ‘white’ church and a ‘colored’ church.”

Desegregation of Catholic churches began in North Carolina in 1953, years ahead of the rest of the South. The bishop of Raleigh, Vincent F. Waters, led the way, drawing national media attention for his efforts. Segregation, he said at the time, was a product of “darkness, and the time has come for it to end.”

But black Catholics paid a high price for desegregation of their churches. As with public schools years later, the black parishes were simply closed one by one through the 1950s and ’60s. The black parishioners were told they could now attend the white church. The reception there was chilly at best.

Many black Catholics drifted away from the church. As Powers wrote in Tar Heel Catholics, “They had lost something precious, namely their own church with its choir, parish organizations and leadership. A social network had been destroyed, replaced only with hatred and rejection.”

Monsignor Thomas P. Hadden, who was ordained in 1958 as the Raleigh diocese’s first African-American priest, said Bishop Waters’ intentions may have been noble, but the results were disastrous.

“The way it was handled created chaos,” recalled Hadden, who is now 81 and is the Raleigh diocese’s vicar for African-ancestry ministry and evangelization. “On a given Sunday, a letter was read from the pulpit that integration would take place as of now — and that was it. There was little in the way of preparation.”

“Many black families left the church because they lost their church community,” he said. “Many white families too, because they didn’t want to attend an integrated church. It happened on both sides.”

George Thorne, retired NCCU vice chancellor of finance and a member of Holy Cross since the 1940s, visited the relocated sanctuary soon after its reopening.

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Independent and educated

But one place that disruption didn’t happen was Holy Cross. And it didn’t for two principal reasons. One was that it was the Jesuits who had established Holy Cross, provided for nearly all the church’s financial needs in the early years and owned the land that the church occupied. This meant Holy Cross had much more independence from the local diocese than a traditional parish church.

Another reason, of at least equal importance, had to do with the makeup of the congregation and its close association with NCCU. “From the very beginning,” said Thorne, the retired NCCU vice chancellor, “you had a connection between the university and the church.”

Thorne, who has written a brief history of Holy Cross, noted that in a typical AfricanAmerican parish anywhere in the South, most members of the congregation were poor and had little education. By contrast, he said, “Most of the people at Holy Cross were educated. There were professors, people who worked at N.C. Mutual Insurance or Mechanics & Farmers Bank, students and professionals.” This was a congregation with the means to stand up for itself.

church community encompasses about 350 families and is about 69 percent AfricanAmerican, 20 percent white and 7 percent African, with other ethnicities accounting for the rest. The Rev. Raymond Donaldson, pastor since 2008, said those numbers, though several years old, are roughly correct.

Holy Cross is a Catholic church with a difference. It has a gospel choir and an exuberant style of worship that sets it apart from the traditional parish church.

“Our mission statement says, ‘We gather to worship the Lord in joy,’ ” Donaldson said, “And we mean it. We’re not afraid to combine reverence with celebration.”

A typical Sunday service is long by Catholic standards — about 90 minutes.

“Not once have I heard a member say it was too long,” Donaldson said. The style of Holy Cross differs, he said, from many traditional U.S. parishes, where you’re likely to find restraint and “a certain piety, and not a lot of interaction among members of the congregation.”

Donaldson said this spirit and enthusiasm is probably what makes Holy Cross

“A recluse, almost.”

“He was very smart, but very unfriendly — very distant,” said Thorne. “He’d see you in public or on the bus and not acknowledge your presence. He never visited people in their homes, never took a meal. He didn’t permit any type of organization — there was no women’s or men’s club. He just wanted people to come and worship.”

Risacher was also fiercely independent.

Though Holy Cross was nominally part of the Raleigh diocese (which then covered the whole state), Risacher paid the diocese and the bishop little heed. Thorne said the church received an annual subsidy of a few thousand dollars from the diocese, but Risacher reported to his Jesuit superiors in Baltimore, not to Bishop Waters. “The Jesuits took care of everything,” Thorne recalled. “Father Risacher never even took up a collection.”

By the early 1960s, Waters had apparently had enough of Risacher’s prickly independence. At the very time he was closing black parishes all over the state, the bishop established a competing black church in Durham — St. Theresa of Avila, on Fargo Street. Hadden was its pastor for a while. “Since the Jesuits owned Holy Cross,” Hadden recalled, “Father Risacher ignored what the Bishop would like done. Bishop Waters could not get Father Risacher to change his ways, but he thought it best just to leave Father Risacher alone.”

“Our mission statement says, We gather to worship the Lord in joy,” Donaldson said, “And we mean it. We’re not afraid to combine reverence with celebration.”

It was at the invitation of the then-bishop of Raleigh, Eugene McGuinness, that the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus agreed in 1939 to staff a new mission for African-American Catholics in Durham. The first mass was celebrated on Christmas Day of that year in the office of a dentist, Dr. Norman Cordice. Before long, services moved to a classroom of the DeShazor Beauty Parlor Training School. In 1940, the Jesuits purchased a parcel of about 17 acres on South Alston Avenue next to the institution then called North Carolina College for Negroes.

A rectory was built in 1942 with one room serving as a chapel. In 1953, the elegant Gothic-style stone sanctuary was completed. Holy Cross spent its first 27 years under the leadership of a single pastor, the Rev. John A. Risacher.

Today, Holy Cross is a thriving, diverse congregation. Its website estimates that the 10

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appealing to many members, and attracts the significant minority who are not African-American. “We offer a different experience of worship,” he said.

The difference goes beyond the services.

“People tell me they feel welcome here,” Donaldson said. “I think this is grounded in the desire among many members to invest in one another.”

Holy Cross has not always been a place of warmth, gospel music and exuberance. The early days were, in fact, quite austere. There was nothing warm and embracing about Father Risacher or the brand of Catholicism he dispensed until 1966. “He was very quiet and reserved,” recalled Monsignor Hadden.

Waters at one point proposed that St. Theresa be designated the sole black parish in Durham, and that Holy Cross be demoted to the status of a chapel serving North Carolina College students. Thorne, for one, is not sure that Waters seriously intended to essentially shut down Holy Cross. “You couldn’t tell,” he said. In any event, the bishop had second thoughts about taking on Holy Cross, with its Jesuitaided independence and its empowered congregation. By the time Waters died of a heart attack at his Raleigh residence in 1974, it was St. Theresa, not Holy Cross, that had closed.

Vatican Council II, which concluded in 1965, enacted a sweeping liberalization of Catholicism, granting local parishes broad

Borne on 96 wheels, the chapel was inched across the campus over several days in April by a crew from Blake Moving Co.

latitude in the way they worshiped. The service no longer had to be in Latin; the priest was no longer required to celebrate the mass facing the altar, his back to the congregation; lay members were encouraged to take a more active role in the liturgy and in the affairs of the church.

But Risacher didn’t buy into any of it. Many American Catholic churches embraced the changes at once, Thorne recalled. “The altar was turned around and the priest faced the congregation — conveying the message, ‘I’m facing you and we’re together in this.’

But not Father Risacher. He never turned the altar around.”

good place to be on Sunday afternoon,” Thorne said.

The sanctuary, however, was small, and not all the longtime parishioners were comfortable with the newcomers. “We were overwhelmed by the numbers,” Thorne said. The bilingual masses —and the welcome mat — lasted until Bavinger departed. The priest who replaced him in 1996, David E. Barry, did not speak Spanish. He discontinued the afternoon mass. Almost all the Hispanics left.

Risacher’s retirement a year later, in 1966, was a relief to many in the congregation.

“The church community was ready for changes,” Thorne diplomatically states in his history of the church. And over time, the tension between Holy Cross and the diocese subsided as well.

Holy Cross grew and flourished when the Rev. Bruce Bavinger served as pastor from 1985 to 1996. The Triangle by then was a major destination for immigrants from Latin America, and Bavinger spoke Spanish fluently. The immigrants “were not warmly welcomed” at many other parishes, Thorne recalled. “Father Bavinger reached out to them. He embraced them.

They felt welcome at Holy Cross.” Bavinger introduced a bilingual mass on Sunday afternoons, and Holy Cross became a destination for immigrants throughout the region. “Word got around that this was a 12

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The Jesuits sold the church and the land to the state and bought 20 acres a mileand-a-half south on Alston Avenue, and the congregation began building a modern church. In 2006, the new property was turned over to the Diocese of Raleigh.

When the new sanctuary was dedicated on Dec. 2, 2007, by the Most Rev. Michael Burbidge, bishop of Raleigh, Holy Cross was completely within the diocesan fold, a parish church like any other. Its era of Jesuit independence was over.

Rev. Donaldson, though a Jesuit himself, says that’s a positive development. “It’s good for us to see ourselves as a parish of the diocese.” The goal of the parish, he said, is to achieve “a greater realization” of its role as a member of the Raleigh diocese.

Succeeding Risacher was the Rev. Francis Scherer. He turned the altar around and removed the communion rail. Clubs formed, the congregation grew and, as Thorne recalls, “The church became more of a community.”

Under Scherer and subsequent pastors through the 1970s and ’80s, Holy Cross also became much more a part of the broader Durham community. The men’s club gained local renown for its “Rib Joints”; the men would cook up ribs whenever NCCU had a home football game, and sell them to raise funds for the church and for scholarships.

The Rev. Francis M. O’Connor, pastor from 1977 to 1985, shifted away from traditional top-down governance, involving members of the congregation much more in the church’s affairs, both worldly and spiritual.

Jesuit superiors in Maryland, soon realized that Holy Cross had to move. If they didn’t sell, the state would at some point invoke eminent domain anyway.

“This is home”

A new home for the NCCU Nursing Department is now under construction at the old church site. Relocated and renamed, Centennial Chapel opened to the public on July 8, when the university wrapped up its yearlong centennial celebration with a block party and dedication of the chapel and adjacent Centennial Garden.

Rev. John A. Risacher

NCCU closes in

As early as the 1960s, the university was eyeing Holy Cross’s property for possible expansion. Over the years, all but 3.6 acres of the church’s original 17 acres were sold to the state for NCCU’s use. The Turner Law Building and the Walker Physical Education Complex both occupy land that once belonged to the church.

Not long after taking office in 2001, NCCU Chancellor James Ammons initiated discussions with the pastor at the time, the Rev. Stephen Garrity, about buying the rest of the Holy Cross property.

The university was poised for a big growth spurt, fueled in part by its $120 million share of a statewide bond issue approved by voters in 2000. Garrity and members of the congregation, as well as the pastor’s

Among the first visitors through the door that day was Jeanette McLaughlin, an NCCU graduate and a Holy Cross member since 1966 who has had a long career as an elementary school counselor in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system.

Her eyes shone and her voice fell to a whisper as she entered and looked at the vaulted ceiling.

“I was married here,” she said. “My children received their First Communion here. My granddaughter was baptized here. This is home.”

H

oly Cross Church was founded in 1939, but the congregation didn’t have a free-standing sanctuary until 1953, when the one-room stone church was erected on South Alston Avenue at the eastern edge of the NCCU campus.

The building was Holy Cross’ place of worship until 2006, when the congregation moved to a new, larger building nearby, and the state bought the 3.6 acres that included the old church so the NCCU campus could expand.

At the time of the purchase, it was generally expected that the old church would simply be torn down. Operating on that assumption, members of the church removed a patch of the stonework from a back corner of the sanctuary to use as part of the altar at the new church.

And yet, four years later, there it is — preserved, moved a half-mile and standing in a place of honor in NCCU’s dramatically transformed Fayetteville Street corridor. It will be used for meetings by campus and community groups, and will be available for rent for weddings and receptions.

A place of honor

By Rob Waters

New name, new location, new purpose for the old Holy Cross building

It’s not clear who first suggested that the church might be saved, but Chancellor Charlie Nelms was quick to embrace the idea. Accomplishing the feat involved securing a special $2 million appropriation from the state legislature and months of planning. A crew from Blake Moving Co. of Greensboro, which specializes in moving whole buildings, constructed a platform of steel beams under the church, then jacked up the platform. Twelve large two-axle dollies, each with eight wheels and a hydraulic jack, were maneuvered beneath the platform.

Guiding the dollies with a joystick-like remote control, the Blake crew inched the building across campus over a period of several days in late April.

And after utility crews cleared the way by dropping the overhead power and phone lines, the church made its way up Fayetteville Street on April 30 to its final destination beside the Shepard House.

The old rectory on the Holy Cross property was town down. But not before a work crew salvaged the stones from the building to repair the gaping side of the sanctuary. They are a perfect match, having come from the same Hillsborough quarry.

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Historic corridor transformed Not many months ago, the Shepard House shared the west side of Fayetteville Street with a partially paved parking lot. The Centennial Chapel now anchors the south end of the block, and the Centennial Garden bridges the open space between the chapel and the historic residence of NCCUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s founder. The chapel and the garden were dedicated at the Centennial Birthday Bash on July 8.

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HBCUs Chart a Course for the Future Symposium clarifies our challenges, and our opportunities

By Paul V. Brown

L

ike the 18th century Hasidic rabbi Zusha, the nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are unlikely to be asked years from now, “Why didn’t you make yourselves more like majority institutions?” Instead the question will be, “How did you maintain the unique legacy of historically minority institutions?”

Strategies for maintaining and building on that legacy were the focus of the most significant academic event of North Carolina Central University’s Centennial — a gathering in June of nearly 500 academics and administrators from black universities titled “Setting the Agenda for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” Among the key topics were leadership, curriculum and funding.

Friends of historically African-American colleges and universities, and friends of education in general, are keenly interested in the future of the institutions that were founded to educate minorities. The good news, of course, is that historically black institutions remain vital and energetic.

Scattered across 20 states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands, the

add to the river of knowledge that flows from American campuses to the global community. But symposium speaker Roderick J. McDavis, president of Ohio University, warned that “Now, more than ever, it is important [for HBCUs] to engage with the world, encourage our faculty and students to embrace cross-cultural experiences, and ensure our graduates are ready to enter the globalized workplace.”

HBCUs continue to reach out to many students whose economic backgrounds or high school careers make them unlikely candidates for predominantly white colleges. The nation’s HBCUs constitute about three percent of all U.S. colleges. Yet they enroll 12 percent of all African-American students and account for 30 percent of all AfricanAmerican baccalaureate graduates. Clearly

“In the world to come, I shall not be asked, ‘Why were you not Moses?’ I shall be asked, ‘Why were you not Zusya?’ “ – Rabbi Zusya nation’s 105 HBCUs educate more than 300,000 American and foreign students.

American higher education, including HBCUs, remains the envy of the world.

Research and discoveries at U.S. colleges

1 White House Initiative on HBCUs, March 1, 2010 <www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-signs-executive-order-promoting-excellence-innovation-and-sustainability>

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we are doing something right. We need to understand and appreciate those best practices, even as we deal with the reality that HBCUs have always been financially strapped and will continue to be so for years to come.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, keynote speaker at the symposium, summed up our situation this way: “That daily challenge — of seeking to do more with less — is real. I don’t minimize for a second that tough assignment, especially in today’s economy.

Yet for all of the longstanding issues that HBCUs face, I am convinced that HBCUs have much to teach other institutions of higher education about access and retention.”

HBCUs continue to provide educational, cultural and athletic opportunities to the communities that surround them, and they act as catalysts and staging areas for community health education and social justice initiatives.

The founders of America’s HBCUs may or may not have predicted the immense social and educational good that the schools have produced. But no doubt they would be proud.

money is the lifeblood of the academy, and those who care for HBCUs have every reason to worry about the patient.

The impending retirement of the baby boom generation presents a threat and an opportunity to HBCUs. The effect

imperative that current administrators steer the gaze of executive-quality men and women toward historically minority institutions — to create a pool of replacement deans and chancellors. There is little time to lose. The leaders of the 1970s and 1980s navigated vast social changes.

It would be a tragic waste for HBCUs, and for all of higher education, to lose that store of experience, especially as the challenges in the 21st century appear no less daunting.

Many of today’s HBCU students — and young administrators — have an inadequate understanding of the vision and raw courage that it took yesterday’s leaders to establish most of the HBCUs in the United States. Future deans, provosts and presidents or chancellors must be reminded of this history so that they fully understand what’s at stake if they fail to protect the schools from shutdown threats. They need to know why it’s so important that they remain open in clear terms that they can communicate to the public at large.

HBCU leaders have responded to concerns about recruiting and retaining students by launching a host of new programs, especially for low-wealth and HBCUs exist amid the powerful first-generation students. That social upheaval that is affecting rapid response is gratifying. all of American society right Successful student outcomes now, and American higher must be the reason for an education specifically. Colleges Arne Duncan, the U.S. education secretary, delivered the keynote institution’s existence. Parents, find themselves having to address at the symposium. state and federal legislators, provide remedial instruction grant-makers — and public to an increasing proportion of opinion — increasingly will turn students before they can master the rigors of this retirement trend on university on institutions that fail at this fundamental of college scholarship. A flood of consumer faculty ranks is well documented. But task. Such efforts need to be ongoing, with technology puts information at the modern administrative offices are no less affected, HBCUs developing new strategies to student’s nimble fingertips. Yet studies with more and more HBCU leaders address the fast-changing pulls on students’ increasingly show that the techno-flood entering retirement and taking with them time and attention. shortens the attention spans of would-be decades of experience and institutional scholars to a worrisome degree. memory. HBCU leadership also is subject Both minority and majority institutions to aggressive recruitment by majority have found that retention efforts improve In recent decades, fundraising has schools of leadership-quality personnel — when freshmen (and sometimes those in demanded more time and attention of talented people who otherwise would have upper classes) are provided with smaller college presidents and their staffs. And gravitated to minority-founded schools. learning communities. This is the practice of while fundraising is a critical component placing participants in a particular program at nearly every college, it is a particular The wider employment landscape that in the same residence hall, ensuring that concern for HBCUs. For better or worse, potential HBCU leaders enjoy makes it they share class sections, and bringing 18

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them together for tutorial sessions or extracurricular activities.

students choose an HBCU, the quality and relevance of the courses must hold them.

Research going back decades and the real-time experiences of presenters at our symposium clearly indicate that students find it overwhelming to leave high school, even a large one, in the spring to navigate an institution many times larger a few months later. Smaller learning communities provide a transition zone for younger people into the world of higher education.

A remarkable achievement of historically black colleges and universities is their ability to survive and even thrive with a paucity of funds compared to other institutions of higher education. Before the 1920s, very few HBCUs received any public funding, so feverish fundraising was the rule. Today, 54 of the nation’s 105 HBCUs are still private institutions and thus receive limited public support. That said, private colleges tend to have larger endowments. Even so, the bestendowed HBCU, Howard University, had a portfolio of $484 million in 2009, while more than 50 majority institutions had endowments of more than $1 billion — led

by Harvard, with more than $25 billion.

The value of learning communities may well be even greater at HBCUs. The opportunity for more personal and immediate tutorial attention benefits HBCU students, many of whom are admitted from less financially and academically robust high schools.

Academic support programs will have only limited success, however, if a college’s curricula are static and dated.

Inadequate programs will drive away the serious scholars and handicap even the most visionary retention programs. Certainly, the overall quality of the institution’s product will be subpar if the courses fail to meet the standards of the marketplace.

HBCU presidents have long shouldered the burden of fundraising, and the task is

Regular evaluation of existing methods of teaching core courses must not be lost in the excitement of adding innovative programs in burgeoning fields like biotechnology.

The goal, of course, isn’t change for the sake of change. The guiding motivation should be relevance to students’ current and future experiences, and enhanced and improved learning outcomes as measured by retention, graduation, licensure and employment success.

no less weighty today. Federal and state student aid to colleges has increased, but so has the cost of operating the institutions, from hiring professors to buying supplies.

Volatility in the American economy roils all of higher education, but smaller schools with tighter budgets and more sensitive investment portfolios suffer greater jolts when markets swing wildly. The constant eye that HBCU leaders must keep on fundraising can divert them from other vital concerns.

associate professor of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania, noted, African-Americans give more of their discretionary income to charity, but for schools to be the recipients of that largesse, “one must be asked.”

The campaign should begin at freshman orientation. It should include examples of how past gifts enable current students to enjoy a postsecondary education. The program should have components for each year in college. It should also take advantage of key milestones in the school year — homecoming, founder’s day, and the like — to remind students of the value of contributing to their schools. Ideally, such a program would feed directly into the more established fundraising programs that most HBCUs direct at alumni.

Legislators

A remarkable achievement of Historically Black Colleges and Universities is their longstanding ability to survive and even thrive with a paucity of funds compared to other institutions of higher education.

A clear message from June’s symposium is that today’s minority students don’t necessarily grow up wanting to attend an HBCU. They know, in fact, that they have choices. HBCUs are doing a credible job of making themselves visible to their traditional and nontraditional bases. Once

It is a valid criticism that too many HBCUs fail to emphasize to their students — early and often — the financial needs of their chosen schools and the importance of philanthropic giving to them. As symposium speaker Marybeth Gasman,

should be persuaded to invest in the fundraising infrastructure at HBCUs. A thriving fundraising operation offers a significant return on investment not only for taxpayers but also for governments heeding the call to cut budgets. The more funds an HBCU can raise from private sources, the more services it can provide to the state and nation.

But until private fundraising initiatives bear significant fruit, pressure must be maintained on government to increase public funding of the schools. In Gasman’s words, “We currently spend the least amount of money to prepare the least prepared students.” The point must be voiced clearly and regularly: HBCUs are more effective at providing college degrees to America’s minority youth than their peer institutions, and the nation is more humane and economically stronger because of them.

They have earned and deserve our support.

2 White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities 3 U.S. General Accounting Office report, “Postsecondary Education, College and University Endowments Have Shown Long-Term Growth, While Size, Restrictions, and Distributions Vary” Feb. 2010

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Membership has its privileges

By Kyle Serba, Associate Athletics Director

F

or the first three years of North Carolina Central University’s reclassification process to the NCAA Division I ranks of intercollegiate athletics, the Eagles scoured the country in search of opponents willing to play a transitioning program without a conference home.

The lack of conference affiliation also made it tough for NCCU to compete on the recruiting trail.

Those days are now in the past. NCCU officially joined the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC) as a provisional member on July 1. The provisional status means NCCU student-athletes are not considered for league awards and teams are not eligible to compete for conference championships.

That tag will be removed once NCCU completes the Division I reclassification process, which is expected to happen in the spring, pending approval by the NCAA. Meanwhile, NCCU is already enjoying the benefits of returning to a conference it helped establish back in 1971. The biggest improvement is in the scheduling. This year, most Eagles teams are playing complete MEAC conference schedules, and are spending less time on the road and more time on campus. The road contests are mostly in nearby states rather than places like North Dakota, Utah and Oklahoma. That equates to reduced travel expenses, more time in the classroom for student-athletes and more chances for fans to see NCCU in action. It also means the renewal of on-field rivalries with the likes of Hampton, Norfolk State, Morgan State and, of course, North Carolina A&T.

The transition to Division I is nearly complete

Fans may be unaware that longtime rivals NCCU and North Carolina A&T have not competed against each other in men’s basketball since 2003. But now the Eagles and Aggies are in the same conference — and NCCU will host North Carolina A&T in a women’s and men’s basketball doubleheader on Feb. 21, 2011.

Those are the most noticeable changes, but there are other advantages to conference membership and Division I status.

Despite popular belief, the move involved much more than the athletics program. It was, in fact, part of an effort to reposition the university. The aim was to align a flourishing NCCU with institutions that are similar in size, and in the programs and degrees they offer. A Division I athletics program would also serve as a marketing tool for the entire university.

With entrance into the MEAC, those goals have been achieved. One more bonus is that MEAC member institutions receive national exposure through the conference’s television agreement with ESPN. About the MEAC The Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference is in its 41st year of operation and is made up of 13 historically black institutions along the Atlantic Coast from Delaware to Florida: Bethune-Cookman University, Coppin State University, Delaware State University, Florida A&M University, Hampton University, Howard University, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Morgan State University, Norfolk State University, North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina Central University, Savannah State University and South Carolina State University.

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Andrea Woodson-Smith is an international star in the rugged sport of wheelchair basketball

By Paul V. Brown, Jr.

T

he first thing you need to understand about wheelchair basketball, Dr. Andrea Woodson-Smith says, is that it has a whole lot in common with football — including the part where it can get pretty rough.

Woodson-Smith, an assistant professor in North Carolina Central University’s Department of Physical Education and Recreation, is a member of the U.S. National Women’s Wheelchair Basketball Team. In July, the team captured the 2010 International Wheelchair Basketball Federation World Championship with a 55-53 win over Germany in Birmingham, England.

at James Madison University in Virginia.

That year, she fractured her hip for the third time and played just one more year. She hasn’t been able to run with the same agility since.

The severity of her arthritis qualifies her to play wheelchair basketball. It’s not a game for the faint of heart — or stamina. The size of the court and height of the baskets are the same as in able-bodied basketball.

Players speed up and down the court by pushing their wheels, in specially made chairs that can cost more than $1,000. Still,

practice with the team. Players noticed her ability, and her height, 6-foot-3, was another plus.

Woodson-Smith has played center and forward for the Charlotte Rollin’ Bobcats, a men’s wheelchair basketball team, where one of her teammates was Kiley, the coach of her national team. Currently she plays for Triangle Thunder, a wheelchair team based in Raleigh, and for the Lady Dallas Mavericks in Texas. Her husband, Jeremy, is also a wheelchair player and a Thunder teammate.

The severity of her arthritis qualifies her to play wheelchair basketball. It’s not a game for the faint of heart — or stamina.

In the championship game, Germany led at the half and was ahead by a point with just over two minutes to play. The American team then hit a basket and took the lead.

Woodson-Smith had played most of the game, but was on the bench as the game wound down. Coach Dave Kiley sent her back in for the final seconds to protect the lead. With six seconds left, the NCCU professor sealed the win by blocking a potential game-winning shot by Germany’s Simone Kues.

For the game, Woodson-Smith scored 7 points and led the team with 7 rebounds.

“She probably played the most quality minutes of anyone in the team,” Kiley said.

Woodson-Smith teaches introductory physical education, graduate and undergraduate adapted physical education, fitness for individuals with disabilities and team sports at NCCU. A native of Waynesboro, Va., she can walk without the aid of a wheelchair, but not for distances.

She lives with severe pain from arthritis in her spine and hips. She was diagnosed in 1991 while a sophomore scholarship player

She can be fierce on the basketball court, but Woodson–Smith’s classroom demeanor is much gentler. Here she meets with students Okezie Onuoha, center, and Derrika Fozard. players tip over routinely. Shooting from a sitting position is far more strenuous than standing, and players develop impressive upper body strength. Penalties are identical or similar to regulation play.

“Once I learned the specifics of the game, I started to realize how much it’s like football as well as basketball,” Woodson-Smith said.

“You pick or block for your strong shooters like for a quarterback, and you ‘seal’ for your big post-players just like blocking for a running back.”

Woodson-Smith was introduced to wheelchair basketball in 2000, when a course she was taking for her doctorate at Texas Woman’s University included interviewing the Lady Texans team at the time. Class members were invited to

She began competing seriously in 2003 but missed the 2004 Paralympics due to medical clearance. She returned in 2006, when the team won silver at the World Championships in the Netherlands, and soon afterward retired from competition for a while. She returned to the national circuit in 2009, intending to compete for a spot on the 2012 Paralympic team.

She sees NCCU becoming one of the best in the nation for sports for people with disabilities, and is hoping it will field a number of team and individual sports, including men’s and women’s wheelchair basketball, adaptive track and field and sitting volleyball.

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Campus

NEWS

Appointments:

K. Sean Kimbro

Director, BBRI K. Sean Kimbro has been named director of the Julius L. Chambers Biomedical/ Biotechnology Research Institute (BBRI). The Institute conducts research focused on health issues that disproportionately affect AfricanAmericans and other minority groups and trains NCCU students for careers in the biomedical sciences.

Kimbro, 45, who will hold the additional title of associate professor of biology, comes to NCCU from the Winship Cancer Institute at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, where he has worked since 2004.

A native of Dayton, Ohio, Kimbro earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology in 1987 from Washington University in St. Louis and a Ph.D. in molecular and microbiology from Indiana University in 1993. Before his tenure at Emory, he performed research at Harvard University Medical School and at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park.

His first faculty position was in the Biology Department at Clark Atlanta University.

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Debbie G. Thomas

Associate Provost and Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Debbie G. Thomas has been appointed associate provost and associate vice chancellor for academic affairs. She reports to Provost Kwesi E. Aggrey.

Thomas has spent more than 17 years in higher education as an academician and administrator. She served as associate provost for institutional effectiveness at Fisk University and as assistant to the vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Her other administrative experiences include stints at the University of Central Florida and Indiana University Northwest.

She holds a Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in the field of curriculum and instruction.

Maria Arvelo Lumpkin

Director, Alfonso Elder Student Union Maria Arvelo Lumpkin is the new director of the Alfonso Elder Student Union. She comes to NCCU from Spelman College in Atlanta, where she was director of student life and engagement. She previously worked at two other schools in Georgia, Fort Valley State University and Mercer University.

A native of Columbia, S.C., she received a bachelor’s degree in communications from Saint Augustine’s College in Raleigh; a master’s in urban studies from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, and a doctorate in educational leadership and policy from Clark Atlanta University.

She is reorganizing the Student Union into a three-pronged department — Student Activities and Student Leadership, Training and Development, and Greek Life. She will oversee management of more than 100 student organizations.

NCCU tops US News rankings among public HBCUs

For the second consecutive year, U.S. News & World Report ranked North Carolina Central University as the top public historically black university in the nation.

In its annual listing of top postsecondary schools, U.S. News placed NCCU 11th among the more than 100 HBCUs. All the institutions ranked above NCCU are private schools.

“It’s always gratifying to receive accolades from an outside source like U.S. News,” Chancellor Charlie Nelms said. “And it’s exciting for us to be in the company of such acclaimed schools as Spelman, Howard and Morehouse. But, while we’re proud of our place in the national ranking, our first priority is the retention and graduation of the students who are on campus today, and we still have work to do.”

Spelman College, Howard University and Morehouse College claimed the top three spots in this year’s U.S. News rankings for HBCUs. The remaining top 10 are Hampton University, Tuskegee University, Xavier University of Louisiana, Fisk University, Claflin University, Dillard University and Tougaloo College.

With nearly 10,600 students, only Howard among the top 10 has a larger enrollment than NCCU, whose student body numbers more than 8,600.

NCCU dropped one spot from last year, when it was ranked No. 10 among HBCUs by the magazine.

This year, NCCU also was ranked 36th among public Southern regional universities, and 74th overall among all regional schools in the South.

Construction is on track

Latham Parking Deck opened on schedule at the start of the fall semester, providing 750 spaces to help ease the university’s chronic parking congestion.

Joining Chancellor Charlie Nelms on Aug. 16 at the ribbon-cutting for the $15 million facility were Willie Williams, NCCU

police chief, and Zack Abegunrin, associate vice chancellor for facilities management.

The parking deck is at the corner of Lincoln and Lawson streets. A free shuttle service takes deck users to various stops throughout campus.

The building also will house an expanded campus bookstore and a substation for the NCCU police. Construction on those facilities should be completed by the end of November.

The facility takes the name of the former structure at the site, Latham Residence Hall. It was named for Louise M. Latham, dean of women from 1948 to 1968.

Meanwhile, work proceeds on schedule on two other major building projects, both along Alston Avenue on the eastern edge of the campus. On the former site of Holy Cross Church, a new home for the Nursing Department is taking shape. It is a $25 million, 65,000-square-foot structure that will include a 250-seat auditorium and a group of skill labs that will simulate a hospital setting.

Next door to that will be Chidley North Residence Hall, which will house 520 students in suite-style accommodations.

It is a 125,000-square-foot, four-story building with a budgeted cost of $30 million. Abegunrin said both buildings are on track for a fall 2011 opening.

Thigpen named to Court of Appeals Bench

Cressie H. Thigpen Jr., former chairman of the NCCU Board of Trustees, was appointed in August to the N.C. Court of Appeals by Gov. Bev Perdue. Thigpen filled the vacancy of Judge Jim Wynn, who was confirmed for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

A 1968 graduate of North Carolina Central University, Thigpen is on the November ballot for a full eight-year term. He was a member of the NCCU Board of Trustees from 2003 until 2008, and was chairman of the board from 2005 until 2008. From 1991 until 1993, he held an adjunct professorship at the NCCU School of Law. A native of Philadelphia, Thigpen received

a Bachelor of Science degree from NCCU, and earned his law degree from Rutgers University in 1973. In 1976, he helped form the law firm of Thigpen, Blue, Stephens & Fellers in Raleigh.

In 1999, he became the first AfricanAmerican elected to serve as president of the N.C. State Bar, and he is a winner of the Lawyer of the Year award given by the N.C. Association of Black Lawyers.

Praise for NCCU from Southern Regional Education Board

An April report by the Southern Regional Education Board, titled “Promoting a Culture of Student Success,” identified NCCU as one of just 15 universities in the United States that admit high percentages of students who face economic and academic challenges and find ways to graduate many of them on time.

These colleges and universities, the report said, “have created graduation-oriented cultures that are focused on student success, through attentive leadership at all levels and an array of programs … and policies that work in collaboration to serve students effectively.”

In NCCU’s case, the report specifically praised the university’s alumni for the role they play in this success: “Alumni seem to be everywhere,” the report said, “serving as visiting lecturers, sponsors for off-campus activities, community service volunteers, career advisers, job providers and financial contributors. Their leadership is seen as crucial to many students’ success.”

The 15 universities named in the report each had a median SAT of less than 1050 for the 2006-07 academic year (NCCU’s median was 840) and a proportion of Pell Grant recipients greater than 25 percent (NCCU’s figure was 56.6 percent), but managed to achieve a six-year graduation rate greater than 45 percent. NCCU’s graduation rate for 2006 was 49 percent.

Chancellor Nelms welcomed the recognition, but added, “That 49 percent figure is not something to be satisfied. It needs to rise. And toward that goal, we are constantly refining and improving our focus on student success.”

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California, Here We Come!

The Marching Sound Machine preps for its big day at the Rose Parade

By Myra Wooten

The Marching Sound Machine is the beating heart of North Carolina Central University, pumping life, energy and passion into the 100-year-old institution. The style of the 224 members is unmatched, their skill is impressive and their sound is legendary. If the truth be told, the Marching Sound Machine has swagger — a confidence that borders on arrogance.

But with a resume that includes an invitation to the 2011 Rose Parade — they are only the second HBCU band ever invited — they’ve earned the right to be cocky.

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I

n late December, the band will head west to Pasadena, Calif., to perform in the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day. They will display their unique combination of musicianship, energy and razzle-dazzle to an estimated 52 million television viewers worldwide and about 700,000 live watchers along the five-and-a-half-mile parade route. Without question, this will be the largest performance in the band’s history.

“We are going to bring ourselves, our culture and our style to the Rose Parade,” said Chase Daniels, a trombone player.

“We don’t have to change our program, just do what we have always done — work hard, push each other and bring it.”

Performance in the parade is the culmination of opportunity and preparation, and the band is prepared. Through most of the summer, practice began at 7 a.m. for the Marching Sound Machine. A rhythmic and repetitive drum line cadence, a rumbling bass note from a tuba, quickly followed by the sliding sound of a trombone — these were the sounds that woke the campus.

On average, band members spent six hours a day in practice — a couple hours in the morning before the summer heat became too oppressive, and a four-hour afternoon session that started in the band room and ended on the field of O’Kelly–Riddick Stadium.

Due to space constraints that are part of life on the entire NCCU campus, the full band is rarely in one practice space at the same time. Members overflow the two band rooms, spilling out into the hall of the B.N Duke Annex. The dance auxiliary, eClipse, makes use of the stage in the B.N. Duke Auditorium, and other subgroups use parking lots or wedge themselves between the dumpsters and utility vehicles behind the W.G. Pearson Cafeteria.

Drum major Zack Torrens takes the tight quarters and long hours of practice in stride. “Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it,” Torrens said. “The focus of this band has always been musicianship, the quality of our sound. Because of that we perform as an ensemble, not for the joy of self.”

New band members like freshman Kimberly

Noland quickly learned that musicianship takes many forms. After missing auditions for eClipse, Noland was encouraged by Daniels to still join the band, even though she couldn’t play an instrument. “Part of musicianship is showing others how to play,” Torrens said. “A lot of people love band but no one ever showed them how to play an instrument. When they come to us, we tell them, ‘Let’s go!’”

Daniels says he encouraged Noland to get involved with the band to keep her connected to the university. “You have to get involved in school. When you graduate, you should be able to look back and see the mark you made on the campus and the university, and the band is a great way to do that,” he said.

Noland chose the clarinet because it was more feminine than the trombone. Practice is even longer for her as she works one-onone with band members developing her technique. She is also learning to read music and will participate in the Rose Parade.

The Marching Sound Machine differs from most HBCU bands in that it is a hybrid band, combining a drum corps with the traditional HBCU “show” style. And it is one of the few HBCU bands to include a pit percussion — a stationary percussion ensemble that usually performs from the sidelines.

The band’s formations are complex, and the members are not afraid to take risks, hit or miss. At one Battle of the Bands performance, they opened without a drum major and instead recreated a scene from the gory horror movie “Saw.” At a Battle of the Bands early this year, they performed a tribute to Haiti earthquake survivors that captured the ethereal essence of Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song.”

At the Rose Parade, the band plans to perform about five songs. The cost for performance rights, especially for current songs, which the band always performs, could top $20,000, band director Jorim Reid said. To simplify the process and reduce the cost, Reid asked each band member to nominate three songs to perform. The biggest vote-getters will be included in their Pasadena performance.

Reid.” Reid came to NCCU in 2001, a product of Florida A&M, where he served as head drum major and student arranger.

Reid later earned his master’s degree in music education from Florida State University and is pursuing a doctorate in music from Boston University. His motto, “Louder is not always better,” takes some getting used to for those familiar with HBCU marching bands, but for Marching Sound Machine members, Reid is the Pied Piper, leading them down a path to musical excellence.

“He is one of the best arrangers ever. It is hard to make one of his arrangements sound bad,” said tuba section leader Travis Jones. “They are written so that whoever plays it, they sound better.” Reid composed an NCCU fight song, “Riff One.” The band plays it at football games after each Eagle touchdown and during halftime performances. From the first note, NCCU fans jump to their feet, throw their arms in the air and nod their heads, leaving the stadium rocking. “When you hear it, you know its NCCU,” said Daniels, who even in practice can’t help but move when he hears the song.

In addition to musicianship, Reid is also committed to the educational success of each student. “Student first and band member second is what he always tells us,” trombone section leader Jerrin Strayhorn said. “We are student leaders on this campus and that has to come first.” Many of the band members are also members of Kappa Kappa Psi, the national band fraternity.

Perhaps it is the confidence band members have in Reid or the hours of preparation, but they are more than ready to take their place on the international stage. “Our style is an instant classic,” said Jones, the tuba section leader. “We are timeless. Our style of entertainment appeals to multiple audiences; everybody can appreciate and get something from our performance. Even if you can’t hear, we look good.”

With maroon and white uniforms that mimic an eagle in flight, the Marching Sound Machine is sure to do what they do best — entertain.

Ask any band member what sets them apart and you will hear a consistent answer: “Mr. Now Magazine

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S

tephen Hayes repeated two grades and struggled with a learning disability that made reading and writing hard.

He seemed unlikely to ever find academic success. That changed when he enrolled at Camelot Academy, a private school in Durham that caters to individual learning styles. At Camelot, he excelled academically and skipped a grade — and he discovered his passion for art when he picked up a crochet hook.

Today Hayes is a graduate of NCCU, and he has just earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from Savannah College of Art and Design – Atlanta (SCAD). His big multimedia work, Cash Crop, spent 19 weeks on display at the Mason Murer Fine Art Gallery in Atlanta and captured the interest of the art world.

Cash Crop consists of 15 life-size cement human sculptures standing in shackles, mounted to wooden replicas of the British slave ship Brookes. Hayes incorporated the floor plan of the ship, which diagrams the owner’s intent to squeeze in 452 bodies for the voyage. Each sculpture represents one million slaves transported in the trans-Atlantic slave trade — the largest forced migration in modern history. At the center of the display rests a wooden pallet, branded with the Great Seal of the United States. Chains connect each figure to the pallet.

Cash Crop was Hayes’ thesis piece, a requirement for graduation from SCAD. He first approached Mason Murer owner Mark Mason Karelson at the urging of a professor. At first, Karelson offered Hayes a cubicle. But after meeting with Hayes, hearing his vision and seeing the first completed sculpture, he gave Hayes

A Powerful Debut Artist Stephen Hayes’ massive “Cash Crop” is the talk of Atlanta

By Myra Wooten

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a spot directly across from the gallery entrance, prime real estate in the Atlanta art world. Never before had the gallery showcased a student’s work in this location.

“There is honesty to the work,” Karelson says. “It is pretty basic — burned wood, cement and rusted metal — but the scale of the work causes an immediate response. It is an amazing achievement, not just for a student, but an artist.” The work measures 50 by 53 feet, and so, Karelson says, it requires a gallery with the right amount of space.

At 24,000 square feet, 10 times the size of most art galleries, Mason Murer is an Atlanta “art destination.” When Karelson and partner Glenn Murer started the gallery in 2004, they wanted a space that could bring together a disjointed Atlanta art scene, one where

multiple artists could be presented at once and nontraditional works like Hayes’ could find a home.

Hayes worked on the piece for five months in the basement of SCAD. He used 14 of his friends and family members as models, draping them from head to toe in plaster gauze to create a full body mold. The fifteenth figure is Hayes himself. The molds were filled with cement and allowed to dry for 24 hours. Next Hayes carved each slave ship, working until his fingers bled. But the payoff is beyond anything Hayes expected. Not only did he earn his degree, the art world has also taken notice of the confident, unassuming artist.

Hayes defines himself as a creator, not an artist, and says his piece challenges viewers to consider the sweat shops of today as modern-

Retired NCCU art professor Isabel Chicquor joined Hayes and two other former NCCU art students for a mini-reunion at the Mason Murer gallery in Atlanta. From left are Carla Aaron Lopez, Hayes, Chicquor and David Morris

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day slavery. “We still benefit from the transportation of goods and commodities; it’s all about supply and demand and consuming resources,” he says.

capture your attention and something to buy. Now it is different; now it’s about the meaning.” His vision for his work runs the gamut of media and subject matter.

After the exhibit opened, his work was featured in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where art critic Catherine Fox wrote: “Hayes has demonstrated an ambitious vision and the ability to manipulate space, scale and detail to realize it. Bravo, Mr. Hayes.

We’ll be watching you.” Art blogs have been dedicated to the piece and Youtube videos of Cash Crop pop up regularly. Hayes and Cash Crop were featured in a spot on the local ABC affiliate, WSBTV, and the cherry on the art sundae for him was an appearance on CNN with weekend morning host T. J. Holmes.

“He is a very hands-on person,” says Isabel Chicquor, retired NCCU art professor and a major influence in Hayes’ appreciation of art. “Crochet, pottery, sculpture, he does it all.” Once, in an NCCU fashion show, Hayes showcased jackets he crocheted.

Hayes earned his degree last spring, but he continues to work at SCAD and says he plans to stay until “they pull the keys from my hands.” As a new artist, Hayes does not have his own studio. He can’t afford it — yet. “I wish I could make a living doing art. I know it’s coming,” he says. “If you produce good work, you will have good feedback. It is all about what you produce.” And Hayes is driven to produce, sometimes working 18-hour days.

He didn’t start out as a hard worker, though. He was naturally talented, and art came easily. In high school, during what the school called special sessions — a one-week period when teachers would share an outside personal interest with students — Hayes decided to try crochet. He says he did it for no other reason than that it was different. In that one week, just a couple hours a day, he mastered the delicate work of crochet. He liked it that crochet patterns have an underlying mathematical structure, drawing on another area where he shined.

With his artistic light turned on, he entered NCCU intending to major in visual arts. Recognizing his talent, art professors allowed him to set his own projects. But he admits that he coasted at first.

“I took it for granted and didn’t use the opportunity to the full means,” he says.

A summer spent at Alfred University in Alfred, N.Y., in that school’s highly regarded ceramics program changed all that. Hayes came back to NCCU committed to not only produce, but also to learn the work of other artists. “You need to know who came before you,” he says. “It allows you to relate to different artists, and it becomes a point of reference for you. Every student should take advantage of all that NCCU offers.”

Karelson, the gallery owner, is impressed by Hayes’ work habits.

“As an art dealer, you have a set of expectations, and with students sometimes you lower that expectation,” Karelson says. “Artists can be difficult to pin down with deadlines and realizing the vision of what they want to do.” Hayes, however, met every deadline and delivered the finished piece exactly when he said he would.

Where does Hayes go from here? He is pleased with his initial success — and just as determined not to be defined by it. “I don’t want to be known as the black artist that does work on black people,” he says. “This piece was focused on a concept. Before SCAD I was into abstract work. I looked at art as something to

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He has already begun work on his next piece. He is close-mouthed about the details, but he says it will focus on capitalism and money — and it will include crochet work.

Millennial Art Alumni to Watch

Carla Aaron Lopez — Photographer and Third-Wave Feminist

“I like to shoot because I’m scared of forgetting a moment. It could be the most mundane part of my day, but the fact that I’m alive and having experiences with people is exciting to me.”

From the first time Lopez picked up a camera at age 20 and heard the shutter click, she was hooked. She became addicted to capturing the image of “hard-working black people” because, she says, they have the best stories to tell. With her camera, she is turning the stereotypes of black Americans on their ear and helping to create new images of what it means to be black.

Last year, Lopez held an independent show, “My (black) American Life” at City of Ink, an art gallery and tattoo parlor in Castleberry Hill, the historic art district of Atlanta. Her choice of this venue was deliberate. “Traditional spaces make me feel uncomfortable.

They can be sterile — you can’t touch anything, you can’t sit down.

My life is not like that. I wanted to provide a space where I feel comfortable.” It also didn’t hurt that Lopez has been tattooed at the gallery multiple times.

In April of this year, Lopez was a part of a group exhibit, The New Pan-African Ideal, which opened at the Archetype Gallery in Atlanta. Her piece, I Am What I Am, addresses the expectations and realities of the Obama presidency with a collage. Ripped strips of unidentifiable magazine surround Obama’s head with colors of red, yellow, black and gray.

Lopez earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Art with a concentration in Visual Communication from NCCU in 2006, her Master of Fine Arts in photography from Savannah College of Art and Design – Atlanta in 2009, and is currently working on a second MFA in printmaking.

William Waters III — Still Waters Fine Art

“I use an altar installation configuration in an attempt to provide an experiential space that can transcend, yet recognize, many of the barriers that are customarily internalized in contemporary society.”

Waters pays homage to the female form as easily as he sculpts serpents that seem to slither. His work at NCCU is legendary,

especially his Altar Installation, which incorporated a life-size woman, bright green snake and an apple. Waters began the piece at NCCU while working as an unofficial assistant to art professor Achamyeleh Debela.

A figurative painter and sculptor, Waters is versed in both traditional and airbrush oil-painting techniques. He is also an advanced mold maker and has cast bronze, plaster and fiberglass sculpture from his own original plastilene prototypes. Recently he started working in a new medium, woodcarving.

Williams earned his bachelor’s degree from NCCU in 2003, graduating with a dual major in studio art and Spanish. He completed his MFA in visual art at Vermont College in 2006. In 2005, while an MFA student, he traveled to Portobelo, Panama, and completed a fellowship with the Taller Portobelo artist colony. He remains connected to the town and returns to participate in its annual Black Christ festival.

Art by alumni: Photo by Carla Aaron Lopez (top); details from Altar Installation by sculptor William Waters III (below).

His current project is an ornate structure that incorporates images of North Carolina agricultural icons like cotton and tobacco plants, as well as indigenous copperhead snakes. The as yet untitled piece also includes a life-size articulated skeleton in a tailored suit and tie.

His work has been shown at the Weatherspoon Art Gallery at UNC– Greensboro in an “Art on Paper” exhibit and at Villanova University Art Gallery in the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies’ “Art and Religion: The Many Faces of Faith” exhibit.

Now living in Raleigh, Waters is balancing his art career while caring for his parents, who are both facing health challenges.

Saria Canady — Freelance Writer “When I’m not writing, I’m far from my passion.”

Saria Canady loves the written word. She was a reporter with the Campus Echo. After graduating from NCCU in 2004, she parlayed an internship at the Herald-Sun into a career at first as a general assignment reporter, then a copy editor and finally a designer. In a moment of personal upset, Canady decided to move back home to Fort Meyers, Fla. “Florida was a sidetrack. Even though I was writing, it was more about being with my mother,” said Canady. While in Florida, she worked as copy editor and page designer at the Naples Daily News and began to give serious thought to a memoir she had been holding in her head for 16 years, the story of her mother’s blindness and her blindness to life. “My mother lost her sight when I was 13, which forced me to grow up fast,” said Canady. “I had to be her eyes, sometimes driving for her even before I had a license.”

After two years in Florida, Canady made the decision to attend Savannah College of Art and Design – Atlanta. In May, she earned her MFA in writing. Today she is a freelance writer and designer in Atlanta. Her book, tentatively titled “Driving Blind,” will be completed by the end of this year.

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RAISING the bar

By Paul V. Brown, Jr.

The program is growing, building on last year’s success. From left are Centennial Scholar Jimmy Woods, Interim Assistant Director of Student Activities Kent Williams, Vice Chancellor Kevin Rome, Centennial Scholar Carmelo Montalvo and Program Coordinator Jason Dorsette.

Black male students are pounding on the door to get into the Centennial Scholars program

D

r. Kevin D. Rome has a bright and prominent future in mind for a program that began quietly last year with just a handful of students.

As North Carolina Central University’s vice chancellor for student affairs and enrollment management, Rome started the Centennial Scholars Program in fall 2009 with the enthusiastic backing of Chancellor Charlie Nelms. Rome selected 25 African-American males in their first year at NCCU. Most had unremarkable academic records in high school. If they performed at the level of their peers at NCCU, they would have ended their freshman year with a 2.2 average GPA — except for the 21 percent who would have dropped out.

Rome’s sights were set far higher than that, and his task was to transfer that vision to his 25 scholars.

With a combination of small-group meetings, individual encouragement, speakers, etiquette

32

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instruction, a few out-of-town trips and occasional downright arm-twisting, Centennial Scholars has become a clear success.

By the end of the first semester, the program was so attractive that students who learned about it by word of mouth were banging on Rome’s door to join. Parents who heard of it demanded that their sons be admitted, he said.

By May, the number of Scholars had more than doubled, to 57. Seventeen of them — nearly a third — had realized the goal of Centennial Scholars, a 3.0 grade point average. Nearly all the rest maintained at least a 2.5 GPA for an overall average of 2.78 and an impressive 86 percent returned for their sophomore year.

“My goal is to have African-American males who can hold their own against any males coming from anywhere in the world,” Rome said in an interview. “Go to any school they choose to. Go on

to any advanced degree that they want to obtain. Get any job they want to get. And be competitive.”

This academic year, the program increased nearly tenfold, to about 225 freshmen and sophomores.

Rewards for performance

the original 25 Scholars. Weeks after the semester had started, a roommate heard about the program by chance and about the financial incentives it offered. Montalvo, 20, knew he could use the money, and he was also looking for black males “who shared like interests,” he said. “They had goals.”

was to see men doing right.”

Positive peer pressure

Montalvo agrees with fellow scholar Woods that the program serves as a brotherhood.

“You’re in a situation where you are pushed in a positive way,” he explained. Montalvo

Besides the sheer satisfaction of success that the young men achieve, the rewards of the program were modest last year.

Those who maintained a 3.0 GPA for the semester received a $300 voucher to buy textbooks the next semester. Those who maintained a 3.0 for the entire year earned a $2,000 scholarship for the current year, as well as eligibility for on-campus housing.

That’s prime real estate. Residential space on campus is severely limited.

The rewards were revised this year. Scholars who maintain a 3.0 will be awarded financial aid, work-study or a paid position as a Centennial tutor, if the budget permits.

To receive the textbook voucher, students must attain a 3.5 GPA. Rome said many colleges focus on increasing enrollment of black males, and indeed, NCCU has its own recruitment strategies. Rome’s focus is assisting those who do enter NCCU’s front gate.

“We should be overly committed to them,” he said, “because we don’t know the obstacles they had to overcome just to get in.”

In a way, Centennial Scholars functions like a street gang, but in reverse. Instead of crime and drugs, the pressure is to attend class, improve grades, ace exams and show up at meetings and Scholar programs. The young men developed tight bonds — one of the original Scholars, Jimmy Woods, 19,

Sophomores Carmelo Montalvo, left, and Jimmy Woods were members of the program’s inaugural class.

Montalvo, a solidly built young man with a dimpled smile and close-cut wavy hair, spent high school preparing for a pro football career. He maintained a 2.5 grade point average, good enough to qualify to play at a Division I college. But at a football camp in his senior year at a bigname college, he injured his back. That dream ended.

ended the year down just slightly from the fall, with a 3.88 GPA.

He still wanted to go to college, in part to break the mold of men in his family who are less than successes. By the end of his first semester at NCCU, he had a 4.0 GPA, something he never thought possible for

Inside Higher Education magazine recently pegged the six-year graduation rate nationally for black men and women at four-year schools at 40.5 percent. That’s about 16 points below the average for all college students and about 20 points lower than the average for whites. For AfricanAmerican males, the graduation rate is even lower — 31.4 percent at four-year institutions, compared with 43.1 percent for black women.

Rome’s sights were set far higher than that, and his task was to transfer that vision to his 25 scholars. described them as brothers — and exerted peer pressure on each other to perform.

Carmelo R. Montalvo was not among

himself. But negative male role models had established in Montalvo what he calls “a very strong disrespect for older men.”

Centennial Scholars “showed me what it

Such success offers hope amid the worrisome statistics for African-American males in college. They enroll at lower rates than other races and than AfricanAmerican females and they drop out at higher rates.

At NCCU, 357 African-American males arrived for the first time as freshmen in September 2005. Four years later, just 116 were still on campus, a dropout rate of about 67 percent. In 2008, the latest year for which figures are available, the fourNow Magazine

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year graduation rate for first-time, fulltime African-American males was just 10.9 percent, and it was still only 33.9 percent after six years.

Universities have grappled with the trend for more than a decade, and NCCU isn’t the only college to create programs to counter it. Some, like the Black Male Initiative at tiny Philander Smith College in Arkansas, are aimed at the entire black male student population. Other schools have implemented more modest plans, including student-run initiatives.

First, a pilot program

Since his arrival at NCCU in 2007, Nelms has raised the issue of black male

to bring the syllabus and schedule for each course, and to report such details as when course papers were due. The mentors used the information to help students manage their course loads and to stay on track academically.

Each staff member also met in groups of four or five Centennial Scholars, and everyone in the program met twice a month. The emphasis at all of the meetings was academic success, Rome said. In addition, they each were given a copy of John C. Maxwell’s “How Successful People Think.”

“We want them to read,” Rome said. “We want them to read self-help books and

Foundation. The grant is for Lumina’s Institutional Excellence for Black Male Student project, a two-year initiative to improve the persistence, engagement and outcomes of black male undergraduates.

Rome described the program as “a very aggressive approach.” During the course of the year, the staff followed up regularly, asking the students how they were doing in their classes and offering help when needed.

They provided tutoring, and often just plain advice. They were not above poking their heads in a classroom door to ensure a Centennial Scholar was in attendance.

Rome traces the program’s success to relationships. “One of the things I say is that we refuse to let them fail,” said Rome.

“What we’re saying to each of them [is], ‘You’re too important to lose.’ ”

In it to win

Dorsette, the program coordinator, agrees.

“Our students felt like we really cared,” he said. Rome’s — and Nelms’ — passion for the future of black males made it difficult for the program to fail, he added. In fact, the three staff members shared that zeal, said Dorsette. “We intentionally sought people who had that passion,” he said. At their first meeting, the question was posed, “Are you in this to win it?”

books by people who do great things — to read and to think about what they’re doing.”

Centennial Scholar Woods was raised by an aunt and uncle after Woods’ father died in the child’s infancy. He never met his Korean mother, who passed down to the trim Woods his high cheekbones.

Woods did well at Hillside High School in Durham, thanks to his strict aunt and uncle. “I can’t say I was the smartest kid, but I got my work done,” he said.

Centennial Scholars began on a financial shoestring. Rome pried about $20,000 from his Student Affairs budget. In 2010 –11, the expanded program will enjoy a budget of about $400,000, including a $370,000 Title III grant. With it, the staff will include a director, two program coordinators, a tutoring coordinator and tutors.

He learned about NCCU’s program while still at Hillside, noting that he was “impressed by the men in the room,” meaning Rome and Dorsette, who had visited the high school. He also is impressed with an expectation that the scholars will graduate in four years, well ahead of the typical six years for many college students, particularly African-American men.

This fall, NCCU was one of six institutions in the United States — others include Stanford, the University of WisconsinMadison and UCLA — to receive an additional $20,000 grant from the Lumina

“They teach us that we shouldn’t live up to the stereotypes,” Woods said. “They give us a vision that’s higher than our vision. They show us that there’s no excuse.” Woods ended his freshman year with a 3.2 GPA.

Interim Assistant Director of Student Activities Kent Williams, left, and Vice Chancellor Rome say that close, frequent contact with the students is an essential part of the program. retention and success routinely at university gatherings, formal and informal. When he learned of Rome’s idea for Centennial Scholars, he urged his vice chancellor to run with the pilot program.

Rome developed the idea with Jason J. Dorsette, an NCCU graduate student at the time and now interim assistant director of the Alfonso Elder Student Union and coordinator of the Centennial Scholars program. Student volunteer Kent Williams was the third member of the staff. The three men divided the 25 students among themselves, and began regular one-on-one meetings with each student.

At the first meeting, each student was told 34

FALL 2010

The high school GPA average for incoming freshmen in the 2010-11 class of Centennial Scholars is 2.7, said Dorsette.

For him, the long-term success of the Centennial Scholars will be those same young men marching across the platform in May 2013 to lay claim to their diplomas.

Dorsette would like to see NCCU “brand” Centennial Scholars in a way that it draws young men to apply for and attend the university. “I want them to think that, ‘Yes, I know they have the Law School, I know they have BBRI (the Biomedical / Biotechnology Research Institute), but I want to go to NCCU because they have the Centennial Scholars Program.”

For Rome, whose vision birthed Centennial Scholars, success was “when I heard the conversation change.” More and more, students were talking among themselves about what grades they received on exams, which courses they were planning to take, and even saying, “I want the highest GPA in the program.”

“It’s changed the conversation and the culture,” he said. “They are creating a culture of success.”

“I attended Morehouse, and it is renowned for raising up African-American male leaders,” he said “But I don’t think that Morehouse is the only institution that can do that. I think North Carolina Central University can do the same thing; can raise up African-American young men who achieve great things in the business world, who can go on to any professional school that they’d like to, who can excel in academic research and scholarship. Who have an impact on the world.”

Rome, of course, wants more. He wants to transform NCCU into a school that transforms young men.

First in Flight

A new program helps first-generation college students, and their families

By Paul V. Brown, Jr.

Centennial Scholars isn’t the only program on campus aimed at ensuring success for African-American young people. This fall, North Carolina Central University launched First in Flight, a program designed to help 25 males who are the first in their families to go to college, and to help their parents as well. It’s the first such program in the nation.

The students and their families will receive mentoring, social networking support and crash courses in financial literacy. They will be guided through the university’s financial aid system. Parents will also be assigned mentors — another NCCU parent or a faculty or staff member who recently parented a first-time student — to help them be involved actively and positively in the child’s schooling and social development. The mentors will remain with the parents throughout their students’ college careers.

Participants were picked from communities no more than a 45-minute drive from campus, so that parents can profit from visits from mentors and NCCU administrators, and draw upon resources from local agencies and programs.

U.S. Department of Education data shows that students whose parents did not attend college are less prepared for higher education, take fewer math, science and humanities courses than their peers, struggle to choose a major and require more remedial course work.

Many of NCCU’s first-generation collegians have provided financial and emotional support for their families, said Tia Marie Doxey, NCCU’s director of student life assessment. The program may help the families learn how to balance their needs with the promise of their students’ educations.

First in Flight is supported by a $10,000 grant by the College Board’s Greenhouse program. If the pilot program is successful, the university hopes to find funding to continue it next year.

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Dr. Gregory Cole

A testament to our excellence A $4.3 million grant for fetal alcohol research confirms NCCUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s advance into the front ranks

By Paul V. Brown, Jr. 36

FALL 2010

P

our the active ingredient of a few shots of gin into a tank of fertilized zebrafish eggs, and Dr. Gregory J. Cole, chair of North Carolina Central University’s Department of Biology, can be pretty sure of the outcome.

The baby fish will develop a range of physical deformities, such as flat noses and small eyes.

They are the same features you’d find in human infants whose mothers abused alcohol when they were pregnant.

Cole, 54, studies the development of the nervous system, and his research helped NCCU win a five-year, $4.3 million federal grant on alcoholism and alcohol abuse. The grant will underwrite work in two departments, biology and chemistry.

NCCU will conduct the studies in collaboration with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, its sister school in the 17-campus UNC system.

The Chapel Hill campus received a separate grant for its work.

Scientists also say that the incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome appears to be several times higher in some African-American and American Indian communities than in the general population.

each of his former schools, he said, he was involved in minority recruitment and training, particularly in encouraging students to pursue doctoral degrees and become independent researchers.

The wiry, bespectacled Cole explains that the zebrafish has many advantages for scientists studying a developmental system.

The embryos develop outside the mother, and they are transparent, so researchers can observe organs as they develop without killing the embryo. It also is easier to manipulate gene function in zebrafish than with research subjects such as mice.

Besides leading the department and teaching, Cole supervises his research laboratory. It includes three graduate assistants, a research technician and a postdoctoral student.

NCCU’s biology department has about 350 undergraduate majors and about 25 graduate students.

The grant comes from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. NCCU won the highly competitive grant after a federal review process in the spring.

“Not a lot of HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) can obtain these cooperative agreement grants,” Cole said.

“It’s a testament to our excellence.”

Cole’s research involves a specific protein involved in embryonic development. Over the years, it became clear that when the function of the protein was disrupted in developing zebrafish, the juvenile fish exhibited abnormalities like those commonly observed in mice or humans whose pregnant mothers were exposed to ethanol. Ethanol is the active ingredient in alcoholic drinks. The way the protein’s function reacts to ethanol may have a hand in fetal alcohol syndrome, the umbrella term for the various ills and deformities that strike infants whose mothers drink.

Research is making it clear, Cole notes, that a woman doesn’t have to drink addictively or even excessively to cause harm to her infant. A few too many drinks at a single party at a pivotal time in early pregnancy can be enough to harm a developing fetus.

NCCU is pushing hard to enhance its teaching and research in the sciences, especially the biosciences.

Cole said historically black colleges with medical schools, such as Howard and Meharry, traditionally have had much stronger life science research programs. Besides beefing up its existing science offerings, NCCU hopes to start a doctoral program in the near future. That would attract talented science minds — students and faculty — and win new research grants.

Zebrafish are ideal subjects for observing embryonic development Cole is the lead investigator on the fetal alcohol project, and is collaborating with Kathleen Sulik at UNC-Chapel Hill. Cole also directs the grant, with Faye Calhoun serving as co-principal investigator.

Calhoun is a former deputy director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and is NCCU’s special assistant to the vice chancellor for graduate education and research.

Cole arrived at NCCU after obtaining his Ph.D. from Florida State University, completing postdoctoral training at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, and faculty positions at Medical University of South Carolina, Ohio State University and N.C. State University. He was named chairman of NCCU’s biology department in July. At

Grants such as the one from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism do more than financially bulk up academic units. They benefit students, particularly by providing opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students to gain research experience. The alcohol grant will finance summer internships in clinical research for NCCU nursing students. It will develop a new alcohol research program, offering students interested in the field a place to study.

Students also will have access to lectures funded by the grant, given by faculty from NCCU and UNC on various aspects of alcohol abuse and dependency in both adults and fetuses.

Luke Chen, also an NCCU biology professor, is leading a second project under the new grant. His research will assess the role of alcohol abuse in oral cancer. Previous studies show that heavy drinking is a high risk factor for contracting oral cancer.

A third project, conducted by Somnath Mukhopadhyay, a member of NCCU’s chemistry department, delves into alcohol’s effect on the generation of new neurons in the adult brain. Heavy drinking may depress the body’s ability to produce new Now Magazine

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neurons, which are fundamental to brain and nervous system functioning. NCCU’s research will determine whether certain compounds in the brain may overcome the harmful effects of alcohol on neuron generation. Mukhopadhyay’s work will be done in collaboration with Fulton Crews, director of the UNC Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies.

NCCU’s grant application made clear that its interest in alcohol abuse research was rooted in public service. Minority-serving institutions (MSIs) are effective in educating students from minority cultures to provide outreach to minority communities, the application stated. Those students “represent a rich source of talent with appropriate cultural sensitivity and perspectives needed in alcohol research.”

“Few MSIs have the capacity for a sustained program on the confluence of alcohol research and health disparities,” the application said, so there is a need to increase the number of minority scientists pursuing biomedical and behavioral alcohol research careers. Specifically, it said, there is “a serious shortage of minority scientists who bring the cultural perspectives essential to successful research efforts on the disproportionate incidence, mortality and morbidity rates both within and between race and ethnic minority populations.”

Scenes from Dr. Gregory Cole’s Laboratory. Students, including Vanessa Bell (at left in top photo) and Princess Ojiaku, assist with the research.

Recent research indicates that livercirrhosis death rates are higher among white men of Hispanic origin than among non-Hispanic black and white Americans.

The application also notes that alcohol takes a heavy toll on minority communities, and it calls ethnic and cultural disparities in alcohol-related problems “of pressing public health concern.”

Alcohol-related death rates are higher among blacks than whites, it says. Recent research indicates that liver-cirrhosis death rates are higher among white men of Hispanic origin than among non-Hispanic black and white Americans. Alcohol-related traffic deaths are many times more frequent among American Indians or Alaska Natives than among other minority populations. As teenagers, African-Americans typically drink less than their white or Hispanic counterparts, but African-American mortality from cirrhosis is substantially higher among people of middle age.

Since ethnic minority groups have different genetic backgrounds, it is possible that some of the disparities are due to differences in genetic predisposition.

Overall, drug and alcohol addiction costs American society more than half a trillion dollars annually, including $185 billion for alcohol, according to estimates by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. That includes health- and crime-related costs as well as losses in productivity. During 2005, alcohol was a factor in about 40 percent of all traffic fatalities in the United States, or 16,885 deaths.

38 FALL 2010

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ClassNotes

By Anita B. Walton

Promotions and Appointments

’54

Walter E. Douglas Sr., CEO of Avis Ford of Bloomfield, Mich., was recognized in the June 2010 issue of Black Enterprise on the BE100 listing of the nation’s largest black businesses. His listing was in the top 100 Auto Dealers, where he was praised for “outworking the competition through determination and management prowess.”

’66

Dr. Clifton Woods (B.A. and B.S.) has been named vice chancellor for research at the University of Tennessee’s flagship campus in Knoxville, Tenn. A professor of chemistry, Woods also has served as interim provost. His area of expertise is in Raman spectroscopy. Under his leadership, the university received $600,000 in money to seed a permanent endowment. He was also elected to the Oak Ridge Associated Universities board of directors.

’67

Evelyn F. Smalls of Berwyn, Pa., president and CEO of United Bank of Philadelphia, was recognized in the June 2010 issue of Black Enterprise on the BE100 listing of the nation’s largest black businesses. Her listing was in the top 100 Banks.

’67 ’72

Dr. Ronald Brown of Raleigh is the vice president of student affairs at St. Augustine’s College.

C. Ray Kennedy (BBA) of Charlotte was recognized in the June 2010 issue of Black Enterprise on the BE100 listing of the nation’s largest black businesses. His listing was in the top 100 Industrial/Service Companies.

’73

The Rev. Henry Pickett (Master’s in guidance and counseling) of Raleigh was named Trustee Emeritus at Elizabeth City State University.

’74

Harold T. Epps (BBA) of Philadelphia, president of PRTW Services Inc., was recognized in the June 2010 issue of Black Enterprise on the BE100 listing of the nation’s largest black businesses. His listing was in the top 100 Industrial/Services Companies.

’77

George Hamilton, vice president of Government Markets at Dow Chemical Co., has been named vice president, Dow Olympic Operations.

The company recently made a commitment for a 10-year worldwide sponsorship of the Olympic Games. Hamilton will lead the Dow Olympic Operations Team, responsible for maximizing the business and brandrelated opportunities associated with the sponsorship.

’79

Maceo K. Sloan of Durham, chairman and CEO of Sloan Financial Group, was recognized in the June 2010 issue of Black Enterprise on the BE100 listing of the nation’s largest black businesses. His listing was in the top 100 Asset Managers.

’81/ ’85

Dr. McCabe Smith (Bachelor’s in elementary education, master’s in speech-language and hearing) of Carbondale, Ill., has been named associate chancellor for institutional diversity at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Michael Harpe (B.A. in English and M.A. in counseling and special education) was appointed Mount St. Mary’s University’s first Horning Fellow.

The Horning Fellowship was established to increase the

’88

number of African-American faculty at the Emmitsburg, Md., institution. Harpe teaches in the university’s School of Education and Human Services. Before moving to Mount St. Mary’s, Harpe served as site coordinator for NC TEACH and the N.C. Model Teacher Consortium.

Laurie N. Robinson has been promoted to senior vice president and assistant general counsel for CBS Corp. of New York City. She is a former Miss NCCU, and her promotion was noted in the June 2010 issue of Black Enterprise.

’94

Carla McLaughlin Boynton of Durham was one of six former student athletes honored by Durham’s Northern High School at its Hall of Fame Dinner Banquet in May. She was a track All-American at Northern in the 1980s, breaking national AAU records in both the 100- and 200-meter dashes.

’94

Quentin T. McPhatter (B.A. and MPA), deputy city manager of Kingsland, Ga., was certified in February as a Credentialed Manager by the International City/County Management Association.

’98

Stephanie Nantz (MPA) was named director of the Youth Advocacy and Involvement Office of the North Carolina Department of Administration.

’08

Friends of NCCU

Isaac Green, CEO of Piedmont Investment Advisors of Durham and great-grandson of NCCU founder Dr. James E. Shepard, was recognized in the June 2010 issue of Black Enterprise on the BE100 listing of the nation’s largest black businesses. Green’s listing was in the top 100 Asset Managers.

Kim D. Saunders, president and CEO of M&F Bancorp of Durham, was recognized Now Magazine

41

in the June 2010 issue of Black Enterprise on the BE100 listing of the nation’s largest black businesses. Her listing was in the top 100 Banks.

Dr. William Pickard of Bloomfield, Mich., CEO of Global Automotive Alliance of Detroit, was recognized in the June 2010 issue of Black Enterprise on the BE100 listing of the nation’s largest black businesses. His listing was in the top 100 Industrial/Services Companies.

Dr. Ingrid Wicker-McCree, NCCU director of athletics, was presented with the Outstanding Alumnus Award from N.C. State University’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management at the department’s spring banquet in April.

In Memoriam ’30s

’36 Helena Bryant Thompson (B.S.) of Rocky Mount, May 18, 2010. She was a retired educator in Halifax County.

’40s

’42 Robert L. Hines (B.S.) of Rocky Mount, June 12, 2010. He was a retired vocational director in the Rocky Mount school system and a mortician. ’42 Eloise Crowder Beech (B.S.) of Kinston, Aug. 7, 2010. She was a former member of the NCCU Board of Trustees.

’50s

’57, ’62 Lillie Arnice Word Hamilton (B.A. and M.S.) of Durham, July 11, 2010. She served as a librarian at NCCU, Durham High School and Holton Middle School in Durham, as well as Georgetown High School in Jacksonville, N.C.

’60s

’63 Marie Kersey Chavis of Washington, D.C., March 15, 2010. ’67 Benjamin E. Carrington Sr. (B.S.) of Durham, Aug. 11, 2010. He was a member of the NCCU Football Team that won the 1963 CIAA Football Championship and was inducted into the NCCU Hall of Fame in 2005. ’69 Stephen Winthrop Chiles (B.S.) of Charlotte, July 3, 2010.

’70s

’73 Harvey Earl Cummings (B.S.) of Richlands, N.C., Nov. 26, 2009. He was a federal investigator for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. ’73 Leroy Walters (B.S.) of Durham, April 4, 2010. ’74 Dr. Stanley Richardson (BSC) of Elizabethtown, N.C., March 10, 2010. ’79 Henry E. Holloway (B.S.) of Dacula, Ga., April 23, 2010. ’79 Larry Smith of Elizabeth City, N.C., Aug. 6, 2010.

’50 Roxie Holloway Moore (B.S.C.) of Charlottesville, Va., April 8, 2010. Early in her career, she worked in the bursar’s office at NCCU, and as secretary to the president at Spelman College in Atlanta. Later, she was employed by the federal government until her retirement.

’80s

‘56 Pheriby C. Gibson Henley (B.S.) of Richmond, Va., March 30, 2010. Henley was a retired teacher in the Richmond Public Schools.

’92 Lynette Fennell Peten (B.A.) of Goldsboro, N.C., April, 12, 2010.

’56 The Rev. Dr. John E. Hall, of Oxford, N.C., retired educator. ’57 Harry E. Smith of Baltimore, Md., Aug. 14, 2010. He was a professor of 42

human services at the Community College of Baltimore and owner of the Harry E. Smith Co.

FALL 2010

’83 Anthony “Tony” Chapman (B.A.) of Grifton, N.C., April 12, 2010.

’90s ’00s

Cassandra J. Freeman (B.A. ’08), of Durham, Dec. 2, 2009.

Faculty

Henry C. Lattimore, NCCU head football coach 1979 – 90, of Houston, May 18, 2010.

Under his leadership, the Eagles tallied 71 wins, 55 losses and 3 ties. The 1980 team won the CIAA championship.

Robert “Stonewall” Jackson of Raleigh, March 14, 2010. He was an assistant football coach, trainer and teacher at NCCU from 1968 to 1999, and was named to the NCCU Hall of Fame. After starring for four years as a player at N.C. A&T, he became (in 1950) the first player from an HBCU to be drafted by the National Football League.

Memoriam correction

The Summer 2010 issue of NCCU NOW incorrectly listed the graduation years for Donald Murphy of Greensboro. Mr. Murphy earned his B.A. from NCCU in 1973 and his law degree in 1976.

Marching Sound Machine is heading to the 2011 Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif., and we need your support to help us get there! Visit our website <www.nccu.edu/tournamentofroses> for more information and to see how your contribution can help!

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Support for Elder Care A

A $100,000 gift will pay for training and internships

n elder-care company has made a $100,000 gift to North Carolina Central University that will allow students to gain management experience in home health care.

Innovative Senior Care Home Health of Durham made the large contribution in August. Proceeds go to NCCU’s College of Behavioral and Social Sciences to provide paid internships for students interested in home health and elder care.

communities. This donation offers them hands-on experience — on-the-job training. It’s an investment in our students and our communities.”

About 2,800 undergraduate and graduate students study in NCCU’s College of Behavioral and Social Sciences. The College includes the departments of public health education, human sciences, public

Care, made the contribution after buying a home health care company created by Durham County more than a half-century ago. Brookdale operates residential facilities and provides services for the elderly, including assisted living, independent living, skilled nursing centers, Alzheimer’s/ dementia care and retirement centers.

Home health care typically includes a range of services to the elderly, including basic nursing care, speech and occupational therapy, personal care such as bathing and feeding, and even light housekeeping.

...there is “a shortage of both talented management personnel and minority professionals in home health and senior care. It is our hope that this donation will help [NCCU] add minority professionals to the talent pool in these disciplines.”

Chancellor Charlie Nelms noted that the elderly population nationally and locally is poised to grow enormously due to the aging of the baby boomers, and that the donation gives NCCU a hand in serving that population.

“NCCU students come to us with a deep streak of compassion,” Nelms said.

“They want to do good things for their 44

FALL 2010

administration, sociology, social work, psychology, political science, physical education and recreation, and criminal justice.

Tennessee-based Brookdale Senior Living, the parent company of Innovative Senior

Lee Anne Fein, senior vice president of the company, noted that there is “a shortage of both talented management personnel and minority professionals in home health and senior care. It is our hope that this donation will help [NCCU] add minority professionals to the talent pool in these disciplines.”

Innovative purchased Durham County’s

Look Who’s Making the Trip

Two major corporate gifts will help underwrite the trip by NCCU’s Marching Sound Machine to the Rose Parade in Pasadena, Calif., on New Year’s Day. Walmart, the retailing giant, has agreed to transport the band’s instruments, uniforms and luggage from Durham to California and back, an in-kind gift valued at nearly $100,000. The company’s transportation services division will use two 18-wheelers to make the crosscountry trip.

Meanwhile, SBC Contracting Inc. and Welty Building Co. LLC have collaborated on a $50,000 sponsorship.

Part of the gift will support the band’s Pasadena trip, and the remainder will support the Department of Athletics.

home health service for $3.5 million.

During final negotiations, county officials raised the possibility of a donation from Brookdale to increase minority access to management positions in the industry, County Health Director Gayle B. Harris said. “We asked for $50,000, and they said, ‘We’ll give you $100,000,’ ” she said.

Durham County created its home health arm in 1963, when no one else offered the service. That was also before Congress authorized the Medicare and Medicaid programs, both of which now finance such services to the elderly and disabled. That led to an explosion in the number of private home health firms.

When it stopped taking new referrals last year, the health department received no complaints, said Harris. Indeed, by 2010, fewer than 10 people used the county’s program. The county commissioners then authorized the sale of the service.

Brookdale gained an already established service in a region with a substantial elderly population.

Investment firm plans $100,000 scholarship fund

T

he money management firm led by the great-grandson of North Carolina Central University founder James E. Shepard has announced its intention to establish an endowed scholarship fund of $100,000 with the NCCU Foundation.

The commitment was made by Piedmont Investment Advisors of Durham, whose president and CEO is Isaac H. Green, great-grandson of Dr. Shepard.

“It is with great pleasure that I announce the first-ever Piedmont Investment Advisors Endowed Scholarship Fund to North Carolina Central University,” Green said. “As NCCU celebrates its centennial this year, we at Piedmont have chosen to celebrate our 10th anniversary by establishing this scholarship.”

Green noted that most NCCU students receive financial aid, and that historically black colleges and universities in particular struggle to provide the financial support that gives deserving students the chance to attend college.

“This endowed scholarship of $100,000, in honor of my parents, Dr. James and Carolyn Green, and my great-grandfather, Dr. James Shepard, will give undergraduate students in good academic standing that opportunity,” he said.

When fully funded, the income from the fund will be used to provide scholarship support for undergraduates, with a preference for students in the School of Business. To be eligible, recipients must be residents of one of these North Carolina counties: Alamance, Burke, Caswell, Chatham, Durham, Franklin, Granville, Person, Vance or Warren.

Piedmont, which is based in Durham, manages about $3.1 billion in assets.

Green, along with partners Sumali Sanyal and Dawn Alston Paige, founded the firm in August 2000.

“As a Durham based, minority and women-owned firm,” Green said, “we understand the importance of a strong community and business environment.

We understand that through hard work, commitment and a strong sense of entrepreneurialism, we can all achieve our dream. My great-grandfather would have been proud to see the lives that have been changed by this university, and I am proud to honor his legacy and that of my parents.”

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Joyner gives NCCU a boost

‘School of the Month’ campaign raises funds for scholarships

E

ight million listeners make their morning commute to the sound of his voice. His show airs in more than 105 markets. He reaches about one in four adult African-Americans — more than any other person in live entertainment. His foundation has given more than $55 million to historically black colleges and universities. And to top it off, he is funny. Fly-jock and philanthropist Tom Joyner has been called the hardestworking man in radio, and this past August, his foundation selected NCCU as the Tom Joyner School of the Month.

“The foundation is really happy to work with North Carolina Central University,” said Joyner, the foundation’s chairman.

“The university has a wonderful history, and this foundation is all about making sure students are able to stay in school.” During August, scholarships totaling $25,000 were distributed to 11 students, and fundraising efforts will continue through the end of the year.

For students like Brittanie Dixon, a Charlotte native and psychology major, this scholarship will help eliminate a major obstacle in her path to graduation: finances.

Dixon works as a community assistant in Eagle Landing Residence Hall and an office assistant in the Hoey Administration

46

FALL 2010

By Myra Wooten Building, carries a full course load and is involved in several student organizations.

But her faith and the example set by her mother who raised three children as a single parent remind her that graduation is still her destination. “I know that everything will work out,” she said. “Faith doesn’t make things easy, it makes things possible.” Dixon plans to become a clinical psychologist and “help people deal with life’s difficulties.”

Today, he is a public health education major with a 3.6 GPA, a mentor with the D.L. Forbes Youth Foundation in Durham — and the recipient of a Joyner scholarship.

Vanie says he is a man of destiny and hopes to reduce incarceration rates for black males as a public health educator. His longterm plan is to advocate for and celebrate young black males, providing resources and opportunities to help them accomplish their dreams.

Joyner is a graduate of Tuskeegee University, and four generations of his family attended HBCUs. He credits them with giving him a solid foundation. “I grew up believing there was nothing I could not achieve,” he said. “Kids need to know that HBCUs are not merely options, they are answers.”

Chancellor Charlie Nelms says Joyner is the ideal advocate for HBCUs. “There’s no better pitchman to publicize the subtle differences in approach to student success between mainstream and historically black universities,” Nelms said. “He’s telling the world about our nurturing environment, commitment to student success — by which I mean graduation, and the HBCU experience.”

In high school, David Vanie never thought of himself as being intelligent or talented.

“I always heard stories of black role models that had achieved great things, but I never really saw myself with the ability to be one of them,” he said. “I never thought I would leave some magnificent mark on mankind.”

The birth of his daughter and his enrollment at NCCU changed his perspective. “I had to dig down deep to find out who I was called to be. My daughter and the impact I leave on my field is what influences me to succeed academically and professionally,” he said.

Joyner started the foundation in 1998, which he began with a 900 number that people were asked to call to donate $5.

As NCCU’s commencement speaker in May, Joyner revisited the $5 theme. He gave each graduate a hug and a $5 bill, instructing them to “add some zeroes” to it and give back to NCCU in the years ahead.

celebrate the holidays with a house full of guests when she felt the first tightening pain in her chest and began to sweat heavily. She quickly took an aspirin and calmly told her husband she needed to go to the hospital. She was 52, overweight and having a heart attack.

Her family had a history of heart disease, but she recalls thinking it would never happen to her. Her memory of the attack is hazy; there was a car ride to the hospital, a helicopter ride to Duke Medical Center, Christmas morning in the hospital and whatever came in between. What she does remember is the medical staff commenting on how heavy she was. “I’m sure they thought I was unconscious, but that has stayed with me,” Brown said.

As she recovered, she began making the necessary changes to save her life. She changed her diet, lost 80 pounds and started working out regularly. But the teacher in her would not let her stop there.

Brown decided that her experience could educate others on the workings of the heart — and who better to start with than students? She developed a teaching module and called it “The Beat Goes On.” In it, she explains the mechanics of the heart and the role of heredity and behavior in increasing a person’s risk for heart disease. “You can’t do much about heredity,” Brown said.

“But students need to know the behaviors they should avoid to keep their heart healthy.”

The Beat Goes On Betty Brown, learning and teaching from her heart attack

B

By Myra Wooten

etty Brown has a passion for science and a knack for making biology come alive for high school students.

A 1968 graduate of NCCU, Brown spent 25 years teaching high school biology in North Carolina and Texas. After retiring from teaching, she was tapped to head DESTINY (Delivering Edge-cutting Science Technology and Internet across North Carolina for Years to come), a nationally recognized science program at UNC serving pre-college teachers and students from across the state.

Today,she is an outreach coordinator for BRITE (Biomanufacturing Research Initiative and Technology Enterprise) at NCCU, where she connects high school and middle-grade students with opportunities in the field of biomanufacturing and biotechnology.

For Brown, every moment is a teaching moment, including lifeand-death events. A prime example is one such event of her own experience. Her story of turning a personal emergency into triumph made its way to Tom Joyner — and in August, the radio host recognized Brown’s commitment to improving her health and educating students by giving her an all-expenses-paid trip for four to the Tom Joyner Family Reunion in Orlando, Fla., in September.

Ten years ago on Christmas Eve, Brown was preparing to

Brown has shared the module with science classrooms across North Carolina and is still surprised by the number of students whose families have been affected by heart disease. “When I tell them that I had a heart attack, they tell me about grandparents and sometimes parents who have been in the same situation.”

She has since written several science modules and provides informal support to area science teachers. “I know a lot of people from my days in the classroom and at UNC,” said Brown. “I know how difficult it can be to hold the attention of students, especially today when you have to compete with technology and the wealth of information that students are immersed in.”

Brown says that science has rewarded her in so many ways, even helping to save her life. She knew, for example, the effect of aspirin on the heart and took one when she had a heart attack. She shared her story in a 250-word narrative submitted to the “I am Pro Heart” campaign, sponsored by Bayer.

The story came to attention of Joyner, who often highlights health and wellness issues on the “Tom Joyner Morning Show” and his Blackamericaweb.com website. It was sheer coincidence, however, that Brown won her trip in August, the same month that Joyner was recognizing NCCU as the Tom Joyner School of the Month.

“I couldn’t believe that I won,” she said. “But it’s wonderful to share this experience with my husband and grandson. He’s never been to Disney World.”

In her family, Brown is passing down passion, not heart disease.

Her daughter is a teaching coach to high school science teachers at Dudley High School in Greensboro, the same school where Brown taught science 20 years ago.

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Donor Honor Roll The James E. Shepard Society recognizes NCCU’s most loyal donors. Membership in the James E. Shepard Society is based on annual gifts to the NCCU Foundation which supports North Carolina Central University from individuals that make outright donations of cash, securities, real estate, or gifts-in-kind. For more information about the Shepard Society, call (919)5306151 or email: <annual_ giving@nccu.edu>.

Our 2010 Honor Roll of Donors reflects the names of those individuals who have contributed from July 1, 2009, to June 30, 2010. We appreciate your continued loyalty which allows us to further enhance the university’s tradition of truth and service.

Every effort has been made to properly list our donors.

However, we realize that the Honor Roll of Donors may contain inadvertent errors of omission. We apologize. If your listing is incorrect or your name has been omitted, please contact the Office of Institutional Advancement.

CENTURY CLUB

$100,000 and Above Estate of Clifton E. Johnson University of North Carolina General Administration

LEGACY CIRCLE

$50,000 – $100,000 IBM Corporation Smith/Shaver Law School Scholarship Fund, Inc.

VISIONARY

$10,000 – $49,999

Acorn Industrial, Inc. American Honda Motor Co., Inc. Anonymous C.N. Clark Company, Inc Circle of Friends GlaxoSmithKline, Inc. Kevin and Lauretta Holloway Linda W. McDougle NC Conservation Network NC Environmental Justice Network NCCU Philadelphia Alumni Chapter Dwight Perry and Veronica Ray Spoken 4 Communications, LLC Suntrust Foundation Triangle Community Foundation, Inc. Wal-Mart Foundation Xerox

CHANCELLOR’S CIRCLE $5,000 – $9,999

Carolyn Aaronson Beverly J. Allen Cheryl E. Amana Yolanda P. Banks Deaver Benjamin and Avon Ruffin Family Fund Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC Herman I. Boone Michel Bourgeois-Gavardin Campus Alpha, LP Chestnutt, Clemmons & Peacock, P.A. Wilfreda C. Coy Charles E. Daye Directcare Community Base Services, LLC Disney Worldwide Services, Inc. James C. Dockery Robert E. Dolan Harold and Kathy Epps Freeman & Associates Inc. Marvin D. Genzer Joyce Gill Glencor Services, Inc. Elston and Lisa Howell Ernest Jenkins Craig Kabatchnick Leroy C. Latten Lawyers Mutual Liability Insurance

Lincoln Hospital School of Nursing Alumni Association James W. Marshall Martin & Company MHAworks, PA LeRoi H. Moore Fund NCCU Delaware Alumni Chapter Charlie and Jeanetta Nelms Virginia Politano Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Masons of N.C. Progressive Sertoma Club PRWT Services, Inc. Hazell Reed

Mark S. Trustin Peggy M. Ward J. S. Whipper White Rock Baptist Church Elizabeth B. Young

SHEPARD’S COURT $2,500 – $4,999

AAUW-Educational Foundation Atiba D. Adams Adele & Willard Gidwitz Family

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Foundation LaTanya D. Afolayan Kwesi E. Aggrey Charles J. Baron Faye C. Broadwater Octavia W. Cabey Charitable Auto Resources, Inc. Troy L. Dixon Walter and Retha Douglas Ronald S. Douglas City of Durham Rebecca P. Edmonds Sudie M. Fields David L. Fitts Tony D. Francis Trulove M. Gilchrist Earl D. Glenn United Way of the Greater Triangle Hermes, LLC Susan L. Hester Huber Memorial Church

NC Legislative Black Caucus Foundation Liberty Mutual Durham (NC) Chapter of The Links, Inc. Carlton T. Mack Laverne R. Mance-Burch Ronald F. McCray Starla A. McKenney James M. McLean NC Institute of Minority Economic Development William L. Mitchell Modern Woodmen Fraternal Financial Paula R. Newsome North Carolina Grand Chapter Order of the Eastern Star P.H.A Parker, Poe, Adams & Bernstein, LLP Thomas and MargaretParrish

Johnnie S. Southerland Kay T. Thomas Raymond L. Weaver Mildred C. Williams Clarence G. Williams

Grady Jessup Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies Bernice D. Johnson Leroy R. Johnson, P.C. Attorney at Law Michael P. Johnson Mary F. Keith Shaw Culey V. Kilimanjaro Wesley E. King

Perry Paylor Samuel S. Popkin Margie Riley North Carolina Community Shares Elwood L. Robinson Isaac A. Robinson Kevin D. Rome Bijoy Sahoo John N. Smith

The Banks Law Firm, PA Yolanda Banks-Anderson John A. Barbee Margaret G. Barbee Laquetta Barbee Thelma M. Battle James P. Beckwith Grady C. Bell Clark R. Bell Sarah M. Bell-Lucas

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1910 CIRCLE $1,000 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; $2,449 Antenor J. Adam Ruth H. Adams Shirley J. Allen Elmontenal C. Allens Rodrick A. Alston John E. Amey Ellen B. Amey Terrell R. Amos Kelli Armwood Melvin L. Asbury William A. Bagby Tyrone R. Baines Brenta J. Baldwin

Danielle T. Bennett Mozart Bernard Doris T. Bethel Daniel T. Blue James S. Boone Reginald D. Boone Glorial H. Bradby Dolores L. Brinkley Leslie Brinson Doris F. Brinson Jean D. Britt Drew H. Brown Walter M. Brown Rebecca C. Brown Bobbie W. Brown Beverly A. Bryant William N. Burnette Norris E. Burton Wayland H. Burton Norman Butler William O. Camp Shirley V. Carr John B. Carter Otis D. Carter Peter Cartwright Melvin J. Carver Central Transport Services of Cleveland County, Inc. Kenneth L. Chambers Chandler Law Firm, P.A. Robert L. Chapman Helen L. Chavious Sammie Chess Randal V. Childs Alice B. Clark Edward J. Clemons M. Helen K. Clifton Gregory W. Clinton Colorall Technologies International, Inc. James H. Colson Community & Ethnic Affairs Advisory Council Willie E. Cooper William G. Coward Cozy, Inc. Georgette R. Crawford-Crooks Lizzie M. Crews Nathaniel Currie Dade Community Foundation Delois Daniels-Hester Helen S. Davenport Tania B. Davis Guion C. Davis Geraldine F. Davis Sarah M. Davis-Walker Dayeco Landscaping & Contruction Kathryn Cook DeAngelo, Attorney At Law Achamyeleh A. Debela Doris S. Dees Saundra F. DeLauder Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. NC Department of Transportation The Dickson Foundation, Inc. DMA Charitable Foundation, Inc.

Robert L. Dobbs Donna K. Douglas William A. Dudley NCCU Durham Alumni Chapter Ebonettes Service Club Carolyn D. Edge Risa S. Ellovich Faith Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, Inc. Gloria S. Feaster Mollie P. Featherstone Floyd C. Ferebee First Calvary Baptist Church Danetta J. Fitts Daisy E. Fitts NCCU South Florida Alumni Chapter Minnie M. Forte Frasier & Griffin, P.A. Ralph K. Frasier Anthony D. Freeman Kenneth B. Froneberger Fulbright Financial Consulting, PA G. Alan Incorporated Alphonso M. Gantt John W. Garland Nathan T. Garrett

Kenneth D. Gibbs Mattie E. Giles Delilah T. Gomes Marion F. Gooding Frances D. Graham Rosiland T. Grant & Associate Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce David A. Green Elvira O. Green Gloria S. Green Fred H. Green Gwendolyn H. Green Roger R. Gregory GSM & Associates, Inc. Hager Consulting, LLC Jarvis A. Hall George R. Hamilton Floyd C. Hardy John H. Harman Janice A. Harper Lizzie J. Harrell Paula D. Harrell Juanita C. Harrell Edna L. Harrington Lorna H. Harris Mary S. Harris Jasper L. Harris *

Robert L. Harris Don K. Harrison Douglas M. Hawley Roland H. Hayes William L. Hayes Sybil S. Henderson Lenneal J. Henderson Mary R. Hicks Benjamin F. Hill Illawennette S. Hill Calvin Hilton Robert L. Hines Michael A. Holmes Gina C. Holt Barbara L. Hudgins George T. Huff Wilton B. Hyman Mark Ishida Willie D. Jacobs Delores A. James Charles Jarmon Leonard T. Jernigan Lethia J. Johnson Walter S. Johnson Constance H. Johnson William Jones Beverly W. Jones Alicia D. Jones Clara M. Jones Victor R. Jose Jacquelyn S. Joyner JUHROD, LLC Carolyn B. Kamara W.K. Kellogg Foundation Dara M. Kendall Eleanor G. Kinnaird Rita T. Lamb Mary W. Laster Robert E. Lawson Charlene C. Lee H. Donell Lewis J. W. Ligon Class of 1966 John H. Littlejohn Arnold Locklear Mark D. Locklear Maude W. Lyons Clayton C. Mack Phyllis G. Malloy Sylvia J. Malone Elmira Mangum Gregory Marrow James E. Martin Ilean H. Mattocks Waltz Maynor Deborah M. Mayo-Jefferies Marilyn K. McClelland LaMisa D. McCoy McCrann Law Firm, P.A. McGuire Woods Oveta B. McIntosh-Vick Angela D. McIver Frances H. McIver Helen V. McLean Julius A. McLeod Eunice E. McMillan John T. McNabb Myrtle J. McNeill

Mary C. Mebane Mark Melton James L. Mills David W. Minnich Carlon J. Mitchell Judith L. Mitchell-Watson William D. Moorehead Nelwyn J. Mpare Darin L. Nalls NCCU Nash-Edgecombe Alumni Chapter NBCAHOF NCM Capital Management Group, Inc. Victor S. Neal NCCU New Jersey Alumni Chapter O.R.A.N.E. Carolyn Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Garro-Moore OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc. Sharon J. Oliver James E. Osler G. B. Outlaw Irene Owens Ida S. Owens Samuel M. Parham Freddie Parker Daniel H. Parker George A. Partlow Jane E. Pearce Norman E. Pendergraft Frankie J. Perry Patsy B. Perry Norma D. Petway NCCU Northern Piedmont Alumni Chapter Raymond C. Pierce Anthony Pitt David R. Plummer Zaneta A. Ponton Cathy B. Poole Poole Family Foundation, Inc. Karen M. Proctor Karen L. Prus Venita G. Quick NCCU Raleigh-Wake Alumni Chapter Joseph J. Ray Regina L. Ray Ira F. Reade Bobbie K. Reddick Barbara A. Redmon Herbert L. Richardson Alan D. Robertson Eleanor J. Roland Leon Rouson Ibrahim Salama Patricia A. Salary NCCU Sampson County Alumni Chapter Hazel A. Sanders Charles W. Sanders Karen D. Sanford Earlene B. Satterfield John C. Scarborough Wendy B. Scott Now Magazine

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Kyle E. Serba Najla R. Shareet Stephanie J. Shaw Brenda R. Shaw Gladys G. Shelton Theodosia T. Shields Evelyn L. Siler Geoffrey H. Simmons Susan D. Simms-Marsh Susan C. Simpson

William J. Thomas Brenda J. Thompson Stafford L. Thompson Lula G. Thorpe Emmett Tilley Martha E. Tilley W. S. Toler Doris J. Tomlinson Twiggs, Beskind, Strickland & Rabenau, P.A.

Quantella Williams Eva C. Williams Larry D. Williams Carlton E. Wilson Larry Wilson Charles T. Wilson Ida R. Witherspoon Clifton Woods Diane P. Wormsley Nancy J. Wysenski

William T. Small Arwin and Alisa Smallwood Bonnie B. Smith Laura B. Smith Eurydice W. Smith Ellis H. Smith Joyce H. Smith James H. Speed Ronald E. Speight Benjamin F. Speller Charles K. Speller A. L. Stanback Covia L. Stanley Cecelia Steppe-Jones Shawn Stewart Richmond E. Stewart Raquel Strauss Harold Suggs Larry T. Suitt Gregory D. Tanner Cressie H. Thigpen Chevella L. Thomas Donald Thomas

James E. Tyson USA Luxury Tours Samuel E. Vaughan Malin G. Vollmer Jerry L. Walker Acie L. Ward Monte D. Watkins Oreta B. Watkins Deborah H. Weaver James M. Webb Mark H. Webbink Ollie A. Wesley WH Account Sandra L. White-Olden Lillonteen Whitehurst Fred A. Whitfield Floyd W. Wicker Ingrid L. Wicker-McCree Willie R. Williams The Law Office of James D. Williams, Jr., P.A Robin S. Williams Winifred Y. Williams

Theodore L. Yarboro Li-An Yeh Sondra A. Young Pamela T. Young Dennis Youngblood

FALL 2010

EAGLE’S COURT $500 – $999

Abiodun Z. Abegunrin Sally M. Adkin Peggy A. Alexander E. L. Allison Ferdinand V. Allison Johnny B. Alston Kenneth N. Alston Elsie L. Atwell Beverly Atwood Morris C. Barrier Grover R. Battle Sonja W. Beckford Donnie D. Bellamy

Ethel Benkin Eugene Blackman Anne Blegman Irma J. Bogan Victor J. Boone Ethel S. Bounsell Margaret M. Bourne Leland Branch Stephanie Branch Rhonda R. Bridgers Willie J. Brister James P. Browder Josephine H. Brown Thelma B. Brown Annie L. Brown Avis D. Bullard Shirley W. Bullock Terry Burgess Tracey H. Burns-Vann The Burt’s Bees Greater Good Foundation James N. Byrd Thomas Cadwallader Vernice E. Carney William H. Carver Kenneth R. Carver Lynette P. Chambers Chi Eta Phi Sorority, Inc. Irma C. Clement D. Randall Cloninger Lauren Collins Alfredia H. Collins Convent Avenue Baptist Church, Inc. Robert J. Corbitt Betty H. Cozart Brian Culbreath Roy L. Cuttino NCCU D.C. Alumni Chapter Reginald A. Dark Jessica S. Davis-Ganao David DeMarini Sharon E. Dent Judy Dillard Carmen E. Dorsey Susan S. Dunn Durham Accident & Injury Center Carl M. Durham Eagleland Timothy E. Elleby Joyce F. Ellis Dennis W. Ellis James H. Faison Debra H. Farmer Faye A. Farrar William M. Farris Courtney S. Ferguson Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund Howard M. Fitts Sundar W. Fleming Valeria P. Fleming Frederick W. Fleming William T. Fletcher Chena T. Flood Cynthia L. Fobert The Freelon Group

Edward D. Fulbright Ernest B. Fullwood Gailâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Hair Salon James A. Gaither Joe Garza Joseph C. George Walter R. Gerald Giant Campus, Inc. Brenda D. Gibson Pamela S. Glean Bobby R. Glenn Edward Gomes Samuel S. Goren Graduate Student Association Donna M. Grant Etta J. Grant Walter H. Green Willie E. Grissom Richard N. Gusler Thelma H. Hardy Cheryl L. Harrington Eric L. Harrington Margaret W. Harrison Mary A. Harrison Loretta R. Harry Mary E. Hawkins John H. Henderson Faye J. Hester Irene H. Highsmith Ola M. Hightower Shirley J. Holliday Lily V. Holloway Charles H. Holmes William C. Hooks Hope Valley Chiropractic, P.A. Brenda L. Horton Gwendolyn D. Hudson Humble Pie Foundation, Inc. William K. Hunter Wanda R. Hyatt Janice L. Mills Scholarship Concert Jessie A. Jeffers Gladys E. Jennings David Johnson Allene Johnson Danielle K. Johnson-Webb Maurice D. Jones Thad S. Jones Robert F. Jones Marie L. Jones Lori S. Jones-Gibbs La Vonne Jones-McEachern Melvena Jordan Irving Joyner Aubrey B. Kearney Stanley King David J. Kroll James C. Lamb Judy K. Land Freddie Lane Erick W. Larson Law Office of William T. Peregoy Thomas L. Layton Betty H. Ledbetter Curtis G. Lee James E. Lee

Edward Leydon Heather S. Linton Mageline E. Little William M. Logan Nancy S. Mack Johnnie M. Maddox Rolin G. Mainuddin Gregory Malhoit Alisha D. Malloy Theodora S. Manley Robert E. Markham Davis B. Martin Tiffany Martin Perry A. Massey Mary T. Mathew Carrie Z. Matthews Barbara J. McClain Vivian G. McCoy Geno M. McCree Bessye L. McGhee Ellain McGhee-Brooks Barnetta M. McGhee-White Harvey L. McMurray Lavon D. McNeill-Driver Anne H. McQueary Doris B. Mebane Robert L. Mebane Adrienne L. Meddock Tyree Middleton Mainer W. Milam Joseph Miller Newton H. Miller Roger Miller Rufus Mitchell Reginald Mombrun

Virginia M. Montague Victor C. Morrison Mattie E. Moss Levelle D. Moton Percy E. Murray Lewis H. Myers John A. Myers NC Recreation Therapy Association William C. Nicholson Mabel I. Nimmo Derek C. Norford Elaine M. Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Neal Jason R. Parker Thomas I. Parrish Cecil L. Patterson Susan Peacock Lillie M. Perry Gordon R. Perry Timothy J. Peterkin James A. Peterkin Kimberly C. Phifer-McGhee Theodore Pikes Pinecrest Insurance Agency Sheldon Pinnell Carl Potter James L. Potts Virginia E. Potts Nathan K. Prather Ann W. Pretty Linon S. Pretty Brenda Reddix-Smalls Association of Retired NCCU Personnel Steven P. Richards

Mose L. Rison Verna C. Robinson Corliss W. Robinson Victoria Ross Meleisa Rush-Lane Arthrell D. Sanders Myrtle P. Sanders Earl A. Sanders Angela A. Satterthwaite Crystal D. Satterwhite Clark E. Scales Diane M. Scott Richard F. Scotton Cameron W. Seay Harold G. Sellars Robert E. Sharpe Beverly G. Sharpe Bettina C. Shuford Phyllis H. Shumate Lowell L. Siler Dorothy M. Singleton Prakash R. Sista William L. Slade Ira Q. Smith Oliver T. Smith Edith R. Smith Anna J. Smith Jacqueline M. Smith Sodexho, Inc. and Affiliates Frances P. Solari Grace V. Solomon Andrea L. Southall Sharon L. Spencer Maude W. Spencer Chuck Stone

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Lacy C. Streeter Student Government Association Carolyn V. Suitt Ira N. Swain Etienne Thomas Brenda A. Thompson Alade O. Tokuta Bettie L. Toney Sharon P. Turner Lolethia Underdue Union Baptist Church Zakia A. VanHoose Andre D. Vann Beatrice W. Vasser Kia H. Vernon Julie L. Walker Abbie G. Walker Mary K. Wallace George L. Wallace Anita B. Walton Gary L. Ward Charles R. Warren Judith E. Washington Vernaline Watson Walter S. Weathers William Webb Evelyn B. Wicker Patricia M. Wigfall Thomas Wilkins Gertrude P. Williams Jennifer S. Williams Alexander Williams Lorena J. Williams 54

FALL 2010

Clarence F. Williams Kwanna V. Williamson Jairus C. Wilson Leroy A. Wilson Robert N. Winston Robert E. Winton Robert L. Woods Danny J. Worthy

MAROON & GREY CLUB $250 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; $499

Said Abdul-Salaam John D. Adams Aetna Foundation, Inc. Howard D. Alexander Benjamin G. Alford Stanley L. Allen Herman Alston Regina R. Alston Gregory E. Alston Edward M. Anderson AT&T United Way Employee Giving Campaign Morris A. Autry David L. Avery James L. Avery Donald M. Aytch Ellen H. Bacon Mildred S. Ballentine Margaret A. Barnes

Nora B. Barnes Pattie M. Baskette Gregory L. Battle Frank Baumgaiener Senetta H. Bell Julius P. Bennett Gloria Bennett Tonya G. Benton Donna C. Bergholz Larry S. Berry Chiara S. Best BH Educational Foundation, Inc Bertrand L. Birdsall Charles K. Blackmon Nicholas L. Bogen James I. Bolden Helen S. Boone Gary A. Boorman Lillie M. Boyd Stephanie G. Boyd-Rogers Wanda D. Boykin Brittany Boylen Bertha H. Breese George Bridgers Sheila J. Bridges Eddie T. Britt Dolly B. Bromberg Wanda N. Brooks Theodore H. Brooks Dorothy Brower-Brokaw Irene M. Brown Vincent E. Brown Kristina Brown

Mia P. Bryan Scott T. Bryce Williams L. Burns Barry Campbell Capital Community Foundation Inc. Leonard E. Carpenter Nancy S. Carter Nancy C. Chalmers Linda Y. Chatman Jay J. Chaudhuri Patricia A. Cheatham Gloria A. Cherry Lecaraston Chestnut Robert S. Chiles Chimusic Company Flora A. Clark Cheresa D. Clemons Thomas B. Cole Mary W. Conaway Teri Conner Iris N. Cooper Larry Cotton Martin M. Crane Zelma L. Crisp Elaine Crovitz LaRue P. Cunningham Vernice S. Dabney Carolyn T. Dalby Anita A. Daniels-Kenney Janice L. Davidson Harvey A. Davidson Dolores C. Davidson-Bradley

Shelley C. Davis Michael J. Dayton John Deberry Lillian L. Deloatch Freidia J. Dinkins Leonia Dorris William C. Dorsey Mary Dorty Raymond P. Dragon Gloria C. Drew Richard P. Eckberg Gwendolyn C. Eddy Jeffrey M. Elliot Alvin L. Ellis Mary B. Evans Janet J. Ewald Extended Stay Hotels Georgia J. Exum Warachal E. Faison Cynthia H. Ferebee First Class, Inc. Barbara J. Foggie Sarah D. Folsom Linwood O. Foust Anthony Fox Edward M. Francis Charles Francum Letitia E. Franklin Vonda Frantz Robert C. Freeman Donnie J. Freeman John F. Fuller Clement C. Gallop Sharon L. Gaston Eleanor Gatling Iris O. Gilchrist Lavonda G. Gillespie Robin C. Gillespie Olivia S. Gilmore Beryl S. Gilmore George T. Glenn Jerome Goodwin Karen L. Goss Eloise F. Gould-Davis Louise G. Gray Shelly Green George T. Grigsby Laura P. Grissom Marice E. Grissom Pecolia J. Grove Thomas Gulley Ronald C. Gurley Russell E. Guy David G. Hager William H. Hager Sandra J. Hairston Eleanor G. Hall Thomas N. Hammond Handi Mart Anna G. Harkley Donovan O. Harper Beth A. Harris Gregory A. Harris Gaylia J. Harry Lois C. Hasan Lenora Z. Helm Yvette M. Henry

Gordon B. Herbert Geraldine H. Hill James R. Hill Verdelle M. Hill Glover L. Hill James R. Hines Paulette M. Hines Harvey Hinton Alma C. Hobbs William V. Hoene Timothy W. Holley Veronica Holloway Hollowell & Hollowell Carol J. Holman Pamela E. Holmes Donna K. Houston Pearlie M. Hudson John H. Hughley Dorothy G. Hunt Caesar R. Jackson Stephan D. Jackson Margaret M. James E. Ann H. Jefferson Arcelia T. Jeffreys Leola H. Jenkins Carol R. Johnson

Georgia M. Jones Nikki E. Jones EveLynn A. Jones Willie Jude Doris L. Kennedy Gwendolyn B. Kent David H. Kiel Judy H. Kilgo Janasha N. King John Kinsey Harry Kuhlman Ricky A. Lanier Helen H. Latten Law Office of Gary Henderson, PLLC William W. Lawrence Davesene W. Lawson The Lee Companies, LLC Tamila V. Lee Herman Lewis O. Ray Lipscomb Ola O. Lofton Alice J. Logan Linda M. Mack Peter Mack Thomas Mansfield

Ralph McCaughan Gladis M. McCoy Jannie McCray Denine McCullers James M. McDuffie Dorothy M. McFalls W. D. McFaydyen Iris J. McKoy Tommy T. McNeill Lawrence C. McSwain Paul Meade Staci T. Meyer Lisa M. Miles Earl Miller Carl T. Mills Julius W. Milton Rodessa D. Mitchell Joseph H. Mitchiner Richard M. Mizelle Debra A. Monroe Edward E. Moody Juanita Y. Moore Dexter L. Morris Mark W. Morris Lawton A. Morrison James C. Murray

Alberta J. Johnson Harold E. Johnson Oliver C. Johnson Patricia M. Johnson Margaret K. Johnson Doris J. Jones Helen M. Jones

Lee M. Marcus Robert L. Marvel Robert O. Mason Angela D. Massenburg Shawn Mathis Monnie M. Mcadoo David M. McCallum

Philliph M. Mutisya James W. Myles David J. Nass NCCU Alumni Association Albermarle Chapter Boswell Neal George W. Newton Now Magazine

55

Eric R. Olson-Getty Laura Onafowora Emmanuel O. Oritsejafor Robert F. Orr Allen L. Overton Alvan Overton Doris R. Owens John T. Palmer Brenda G. Parker Gwendolyn L. Parker Milton E. Parker Huston Paschal Vivian R. Patterson James E. Patterson William T. Penn Ronald G. Penny Wendell Perry Mary E. Pettus O. M. Pharr Harry P. Phillips Debna A. Porter Walters Phillip Powell Anita R. Powers-Branch Valerie E. Prince E. Yvonne Pugh-Burford Anthony B. Purcell Edward Pygatt Eleanor M. Qadirah Debra K. Quigley Kenneth Ray Robert G. Raynor Elaine W. Reid Margaret L. Reid Paulette Y. Reid Sharon Reuss Christopher M. Reynolds Celia L. Rice Swannie M. Richards Daphine Richardson Reginald J. Roberson Edward K. Roberts Joli D. Robinson Anthony P. Robinson Wade Robinson Mae L. Rodney Walter J. Rogan John C. Rogers Lahoma S. Romocki Odessa Roseboro Ruth E. Royster Victoria Rubin John D. Runkle Donna R. Rutala Doris N. Rutherford Salters Publishing Services, Inc. Samm-Art Williams, Inc SAS Institute, Inc Craig M. Savage SBC Contracting, Inc Beverly A. Scarlett Schwab Charitable Fund Pamela Schwingle Sonya Scott Constance Scott Joseph E. Seagle Mattie R. Sharpless Louise M. Shipman 56

FALL 2010

Miles E. Simpson Shawn Slome Rosa W. Small Glasco Smith Richard D. Smith Joel C. Smith Smitten, LLC Lottie J. Sneed Wesley Spells Dionne G. Stanley Mark B. Steelman Tom E. Stevens Cheryl Stone Michael L. Stout Gwendolyn A. Strane Dwight Strickland Sutton Golf Club Huras L. Sutton Target Julia W. Taylor Shirley A. Taylor-Edwards Patricia S. Tennis M. R. Thissen Olivia B. Thompkins Mittie L. Thompson Martha T. Thompson Kenneth Thompson Geraldine H. Thompson

John R. Thompson David B. Thornton Michael M. Throop David R. Tilley Hassie S. Torain-Hester Richard D. Townsend David Tripp Zelma G. Valentine William Valentine Julia M. Varner Melvin L. Vass Antrez M. Waddell Alex V. Waddell Eric E. Walker Clara Ann V. Walker Brad R. Walker Margaret T. Walker John N. Wall George H. Walls Leroy Walters Michele S. Ware Russell C. Washington Barbara J. Waters Wilson Flora S. Whitaker Joseph J. White Katie A. White Monya J. White Peggy P. Whiting

Louise B. Williams N. Scherrye Williams Samuel A. Williams Jon Scott Williams Syrena N. Williams Ellis K. Williams Cecelia W. Williams George P. Wilson Jevon C. Wilson Joyce Wilson-Townes J. M. Woodard Ontario S. Wooden Mary E. Wright Lydia W. Wylie Everett D. Yopp Douglas G. Young

This listing includes everyone who contributed at least $250 between July 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010.

Those not found on this list, but contributed, will be displayed on the full list, posted on NCCUâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s website.

Chris and Willette Martin (photo taken at the Centennial Gala | May 2010)

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