Oct. 24, 1997
Contact: Sharon Rankin, (785) 864-7856; story by Mary Jane Dunlap, (785) 864-8853
YOUNG BLACK LEADERS TO FOCUS ON MULTICULTURAL SOCIETY
LAWRENCE -- More than 300 black students from Kansas and Missouri high schools will meet at the University of Kansas Oct. 30 to focus on "Preparing African-American Youth for a Multicultural Society," in the Kansas Union ballroom.
Jacob U. Gordon, director of KU's Center for Multicultural Leadership, part of the Institute for Life Span Studies, will open the 12th Black Leadership Symposium at 9:45 a.m.
Sylvia Robinson, Kansas Board of Regents member and senior officer with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., will join Charles H. Beady Jr., president of Piney Woods (Miss.) Country Life School in helping the students focus on a multicultural society. The Piney Woods school is the largest of five historically black boarding schools in the United States.
Beady will speak at 11 a.m., and Robinson will address the students at noon, during lunch.
Students selected to attend must have a 3.0 minimum grade-point average and be college bound or have demonstrated leadership potential, Gordon said. Among those attending are students enrolled in the KU African-American Male Leadership Academy, funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
Workshops on black rites of passages and on preparing for post-secondary education will be offered in the morning and afternoon. Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka, associate professor of theatre and film and of women's studies, will lead the rites-of-passage workshop for females; Nkosi Halim, Kansas City, Mo., department of health officer, will lead the male workshop.
Sherwood Thompson, director of KU's minority affairs office, will direct an afternoon workshop for students in grades nine and 10 on preparing for post-secondary education; James R. Kitchen, KU dean of student life, will direct the same workshop for students in grades 11 and 12.
The annual symposium is presented by the Center for Multicultural Leadership in the Institute for Life Span Studies, Office of the Provost and the Division of Continuing Education.
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