October 15, 2001

Contact: Heather Hoy, KU Continuing Education, (785) 864-3978.

Black Leadership Symposium to bring 500 high school students to KU

LAWRENCE -- About 500 Kansas and Kansas City, Mo., high school students will join University of Kansas Chancellor Robert Hemenway and other area leaders for KU's 16th Annual Black Leadership Symposium, "Reading Gets You There." The event takes place Thursday, Oct. 25, in the Kansas Union.

Students in grades 9 through 12 who have at least a 3.25 grade-point average in their pre-college curriculum or who are viewed as gifted with leadership potential will attend this year's symposium. Participants of the African American Male Leadership Academy, sponsored by the Village Foundation of Alexandria, Va., will be included.

Five students will win $100 each for submissions to the symposiumÿs book review contest, which is designed to promote literacy. Students must read a book from a list that includes works by Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes and W.E.B. DuBois. One winner from each grade and one from the African American Male Leadership Academy will be selected. Winning students will be announced at the event.

"The symposium will prepare our youth for creative leadership in the future," said Jacob U. Gordon, executive director of KU's Center for Multicultural Leadership and coordinator of the symposium. "Our objective this year is to stimulate students' interest in reading and reduce the potential for functional illiteracy."

Registration begins at 8:30 a.m. on Level 5 of the Kansas Union. At 9:45 a.m. in Woodruff Auditorium, Chancellor Hemenway will speak about African American author Zora Neale Hurston. He wrote a biography about Hurston, who wrote novels and folklore during the Harlem Renaissance.

Area leaders meeting with symposium students include Barbara Ballard, KU associate vice chancellor for student affairs and a state representative for Kansas District 44, and Robert Page, director of the KU Office of Multicultural Affairs.

Workshops will focus on leadership development and preparation for post-secondary education. Panels of African American KU students will answer questions.

Student participants may attend an information fair in the Kansas Union, where representatives from 22 KU organizations and departments will showcase resources available to KU students. A talent show will end the symposium. Students can register to sing, dance, read poetry, perform a monologue or play an instrument in the show.

Symposium sponsors include the Office of the Provost, Center for Multicultural Leadership, Office of Multicultural Affairs, Office of Admissions, Department of African and African-American Studies, KU Continuing Education and the U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau.