9:00 Plenary, SC 136

Welcome: Henry Vance Davis, dean, School of Social Science and Human Services; director, Africana Institute
Information Overview: Venus Hewing, counselor, Center for Health & Counseling Services

9:15, Location: SC 137

Blacks in the West, 1100AD-1889: A Forgotten Part of the Past
Introduction: TBA
Dr. Cortez Williams
University of New Mexico

Dr. Cortez Williams exposes an interesting facet of American History in a one-hour slide/lecture presentation. The presentation is based on a traveling exhibit presented both domestically and abroad. It was in Europe for 18 months. There are some 49 slides and with every slide are unique stories. It is a study of the life of people of African descent in the American West. While the early West is usually described as tri-cultural – Hispanics, Native Americans, and Whites--there was a greater diversity than this description suggests. Tradition and history indicate that Blacks came into the West with the Spanish. Some even claim they arrived after the Civil War. This lecture provides an opportunity for people to know the full story.

The history of the West has been a muted history, which is its underlining difference from the history learned in the East. The history of the East dealing with Blacks, is the History of Slavery, which is how most people perceive the ascendancy of Blacks in America. This lecture will provide new insights into the contributions and impacts that Blacks had in the development of the West and consequently on the development of America.

9:15, Location: SC 138

Workshop: Creating Safe Space for Effective Dialogue between African Americans and Euro Americans
Introduction: Dr. Letizia Gambrell-Boone, special assistant to the president, Ramapo College of New Jersey; Dr. Peter Heinze, professor of Psychology, Ramapo College of New Jersey

10:15 11:30, SC 138

Panel: Community and College Relations
Moderator: Dr. Henry Vance Davis
Robert Robinson, president, Bergen County NAACP; Lauren F. Nance, owner & chief consultant, A.J. Business Communications; Mr. Eugene Marshal, director of Athletics, chair, NCAA Minority Opportunity and Interest Committee, vice president, Black Coaches Association, Ramapo College of New Jersey; Dr. Tilahun Sineshaw, president Minority Faculty and Staff Association (MFSA), professor of Psychology, Ramapo College of New Jersey; Chris Irving, president, Student Government Association, Ramapo College of New Jersey; John Mulhern, director, Teacher Education, Ramapo College of New Jersey; former superintendent, New Jersey Public Schools

This panel will discuss ways and means of establishing relationships between College faculty, staff, and administrators and community leaders. It will seek to identify the issues common to both camps and the contributions each can make to the other.

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12:00 Noon, Location: Pavilion

Planning Committee Luncheon
Master of Ceremonies: Lorraine Edwards, director, Office of Affirmative Action and Workplace Compliance, Ramapo College of New Jersey
Introduction of the Dais: Tilahun Sineshaw
Welcome: William Sanborn Pfeiffer, provost/vice president for Academic Affairs, Ramapo College of New Jersey
Planning Committee Introductions: Henry Vance Davis
Board Introductions: Kambon Camara, vice president, SAP National Board, professor of Psychology, Bloomsburg University
Awards and Recognition: Daniel Jean, assistant director for Student Activities, Office of Student Development, Ramapo College of New Jersey

Keynote: Fifty-years Since Brown: Sacrifice & Vigilance
Introduction of the Brown Sisters: Henry Vance Davis
Linda Brown Thompson, program associate, Brown Foundation
Cheryl Brown Henderson, executive director, Brown Foundation

Members of the family on whose behalf the original Brown vs. Topeka Kansas Board of Education suit was filed will speak. The famous Supreme Court decision after the same name that struck down Plessy v Ferguson and led to desegregation in America, took the name of the original Brown suit. The Brown sisters will be followed by student and audience questions and answers.

2:15, Location: SC 136

Workshop: Sharing Practical Tips and Strategies for Teaching Effectively
Introduction: TBA
Dr. Phil McLewin, director, Faculty Resource Center, professor of Economics, Ramapo College of New Jersey

Being a good teacher is tough no matter how long you’ve been doing it; just getting started in the college classroom is even tougher. Teaching is certainly one of the most insular of professions - where we practice what we do in isolation and rarely talk shop, save for complaining about our students.

Here’s an opportunity to explore practical ways to improve your teaching. The workshop is pitched to new faculty members dealing with issues around establishing good student-faculty relations, improving student learning, testing, grading, and using classroom technology. Experienced faculty members are invited to share their tips and, we suspect, to hear fresh ideas from others.

Dr. McLewin has prepared a PowerPoint presentation, but only as a reference point for what he hopes will be a lively exchange of ideas.

2:15, Location: SC 137

Panel:
Commentary on Brown vs. Board of Education: Where are We Now?

Moderator: Dr. Erin Augis, professor of Sociology, Ramapo College of New Jersey

David Barnes, student, School of Social Science and Human Services, Ramapo College of New Jersey; Tiffany Freud, student, School of Social Science and Human Services, Ramapo College of New Jersey; Rebecca Petrie, student, School of Social Science and Human Services, Ramapo College of New Jersey

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3:30, Location: SC 136

Workshop: Damn!! I am Tired: The Roles of the African American Professional in Higher Education

Introduction: George Gonpu, professor of Economics, Ramapo College of New Jersey
Ms. Lorraine Edwards, Director, Office of Affirmative Action Ramapo College of NJ
Ms. Venus Hewing, Counselor, Center for Health & Counseling Services Ramapo College of NJ

As more and more African Americans, whether they are administrators, faculty or staff, enter into the higher education arena, they discover the need to extend themselves more in order to thrive within the university or college community. Some African Americans become torn between scholarship, advancement, and community service; they need to be known by the entire campus community. Their approaches and styles are being reviewed and accessed by all. The African-American professional thinks it is his/her job to attempt to service the needs of all, regardless of what their job description may say.

Then, one morning while walking to their office, they conduct a self-appraisal of themselves and all they have done. As they reach the office, sit down at the desk, turn on the computer with a blank stare on their face, the words are uttered, “Damn!! I’m tired.”

As you ponder this statement, if you wonder if others feel this way, attend this workshop to discuss all the issues, and you just may find your answer.

5:30, Location: SC 136

Board Reception

7:00, Location: SC 219

Middle Eastern Cultural Dance Festival, sponsored by the Office of International Studies and The Culture Club

9:30, Location: Pavilion 1

Session A
Moderator: Dr. Ronald Dorris, Xavier University

Public Schools Desegregation: A Positive for All
Dr. Rachel Pereira
New Jersey Department of Education

This presentation will report on the findings of a study of the impact of desegregation on white students. The objective of this study was to determine if a relationship existed between the racial composition of a school and educational outcomes for public school high school students. The findings clearly point to a positive relationship between school level desegregation and outcomes for all students, black and white.

White students from desegregated educational experiences (as opposed to their segregated white counterparts) appear to be associated not only with better overall opportunities to learn in school, but also with greater social capital in the forms of higher future aspirations and better attitudes toward civic participation.

Addressing Our Multiple Identities as Academics and Regular Family Folk
Dr. Evangeline A. Wheeler
Towson University

As Africana professors and intellectuals, we are often the only such persons within our families. Often family members question our professional roles, relevance, and responsibilities. This presentation will focus on the psychological dimensions involved in presenting our intellectual selves to our families and larger communities. It will examine the perceptions that our families have of us, the way we see ourselves in the family, the struggles of integrating academic thought and family dynamics, and how our families’ perceptions inform our work. Thus, we will look at the larger issue of how multiple identities- academic, intellectual, and family member- interact to create our unique selves. Focus is also on theorizing the role of academic scholarship on improvements in the black community. Cross-disciplinary interview findings from thirty members of the Africana professoriate form the basis of discussion and analysis.

African-American Educators’ Ethical and Diversity Responsibilities to the Higher Educational Community
Dr. Darrell E. Brown
Ivy Tech State College

African-American educators and community leaders must play an important role in educating students from diverse groups to become effective citizens in a democratic society, while adhering to high ethical standards. Students experiencing democracy and diversity in the classrooms of colleges and universities tend to become more thoughtful and active citizens in their communities. To create democratic schools for students in higher education from diverse racial, ethnic, and cultural groups teachers must examine their own cultural assumptions and attitudes, their behaviors, and the subject-matter knowledge they teach. They must also teach students how to examine the knowledge embedded in the college and university curriculum while reaffirming their own values and community cultures. African-American educators as change agents should strive to create and maintain a civic community that works for the common good. The classroom should be a forum for the exchange of ideas in which ethical and diversity issues take place. This presentation will explore the implications of these challenges.

9:30, Location: Pavilion 2

Workshop: Publishing in the Academic Market: Tips and Insights
Introduction: Dr. Henry Vance Davis
Dr. Robert Chrisman, director, Department of Black Studies, University of Nebraska Omaha, editor and co-founder, The Black Scholar

In this workshop Dr. Chrisman will share insights from his thirty-five years as editor of the premiere scholar-activist journal in America. He will address questions such as: what do editors look for; how best should an author package their submissions, etc.

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9:30, Location: Pavilion 3

Session B
Moderator: Tilahun Sineshaw

Celebrating and Unearthing Literacy Successes
Dr. Yvonne E. Price
Stanford University

This presentation will examine the impact and importance of the impressive amount of recovery work and scholarship that has occurred over the last thirty or forty years: for example, republishing of lost and out-of-print texts, and authenticating the authorship of slave narratives. Additionally, this presentation will celebrate our literary successes in the distant past and laud those scholars who assured that present and future generations would have access to these works, most of which were out of print thirty years ago.

A Progressively Endangered Species: The Ethiopian Academy under Three Regimes
Professor Bahru Zewde
Addis Ababa University

Professor Zewde, explores the fortune of Ethiopian academia in the last half century or so, that is, since the beginning of higher education in Ethiopia with the establishment of the University College of Addis Ababa (UCAA) in 1950. An extension of a long-standing interest in the history of Ethiopian intellectuals, his paper builds on work published in 2002 titled, Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia: The reformist intellectuals of the early twentieth century, co-published with James Currey of Oxford and Ohio University Press. The story of those early intellectuals, fascinating as it is, is only part of the fateful saga of the Ethiopian intelligentsia throughout the last century. That saga broadly passes through three distinct phases: reformism (c. 1900-1960), revolutionary agitation (c. 1960-1977) and disengagement (1977 onwards).

This paper proposes to investigate the last two phases identified above. For much of that period, UCAA and its more expanded progeny, Haile Sellassie I University (renamed Addis Ababa University in 1975), were the main centers of higher education. The period witnessed three different political regimes: the imperial regime which was swept away by the 1974 revolution, the military (or Darg) regime which was in turn toppled in 1991, and the current regime dominated by the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The investigation is based on research conducted particularly with regard to the imperial and Darg regimes, and Professor Zewde’s personal experience of all three regimes.

Power Relations & the Social Relevance of Teaching & Research in African Higher Education: The Ethiopian Experience
Professor Kassahun Berhanu
Addis Ababa University

The central hypothesis of this paper is that unless the existing unequal relations between establishments of higher education and internal and external wielders of political and economic power are revisited and adjusted, teaching and research cannot meaningfully contribute to societal development.

This paper seeks to explore the impact of influences originating from internal and external sources on the social relevance and meaningful role of teaching and research in establishments of higher education in Africa. Drawing on the experiences of African higher education, an attempt will be made to examine the state of affairs pertaining to the situation in Ethiopia. In view of the research problem and in the light of the findings and analyses thereof means and ways of ameliorating existing imbalances and inadequacies will be proposed.

11:00, Location: Pavilion 1

Session A
Moderator: Dr. Ben Wilson, Western Michigan University

“Barbershop,” “The Passion of Christ,” and the Africana Professoriate”
Professor Vernon McClean
William Paterson University

According to The New York Times, Cedric the Entertainer in the movie, “Barbershop,” “mocks the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks.” Therefore, the US presidential candidate, the Reverend Al Sharpton, and Civil Rights Activist, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, “have called on the studio, MGM, to apologize and to delete the jokes from future video and DVD versions.” Chris McGurk, the vice chairman and chief operations officer of MGM refused. He refused even to see Reverend Sharpton to discuss the matter.

Believing that there is no hierarchy of oppression, this paper will compare and contrast the treatment of “Barbershop” and “The Passion of Christ.” For example, even though he deleted a scene in “The Passion of the Christ,” according to the Times, “ The new film may harm Gibson’s career.” But a Times article on “Barbershop” concludes, “The ‘Barbershop’ criticism is only the most recent generational skirmish over how popular entertainers…should treat the hallowed events and figures of the civil rights past.”

African-American Intellectuals Against Mis-Education: Before and After Brown Vs. the Topeka Board of Education
Dr. Karl Johnson
Ramapo College of New Jersey

Dr. Johnson will do a comparison of the challenge of black Mis-Education faced by African-American intellectuals from 3 time periods. Much of the analysis will be based on Carter G. Woodson’s The Mis-Education of the Negro (1930s); Harold Cruse’s The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual (1960s); and a present day analysis from Dr. Johnson. The conclusion will include what African-American intellectuals have to do today to stay relevant after Brown v. Board.

Teaching While Black: The Guilt or Innocence of Being the First Tenured Black American Professor to teach Future Police Officers at a Predominately White University. A Case Study…
Dr. Michael A. McMorris
Ferris State University

Ferris State University established a Department of Criminal Justice more than 30 years ago. In 1996, the University hired its first tenure-track, African-American male professor. Some five years later, that professor was awarded tenure. This case study focuses on the challenges and triumphs that this professor faces(ed) while making history. Topics to be discussed include: Academic Professionalism and Collegiality; The Fight for Student Respect and Authority in the Classroom; The Illusion of Academic Freedom for Black Faculty; Understanding the Policies, Procedures, and Contracts that Govern Your employment; Developing Positive Relationships with Colleagues and Students, and Insuring Professional and Student Success.

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11:00, Pavilion 3

Session B
Moderator: Dr. Tilahun Sineshaw

Desegregation, Civil Rights, and Affirmative Action: How Far We Have Come?
Dr. Kambon Camara
Bloomsburg University

Desegregation and affirmative action are products of the Civil Rights aspirations of
African Americans and their struggle for full citizenship in America. It is the purpose of this paper to take a cursory look at their impact against a backdrop of a history defined by an overarching ideology of white supremacy and an almost scared belief in a Western Eurocentric hegemonic paradigm. While the goals of desegregation and affirmative action have been reasonable within the context of African American’s collective struggle for equality under the law and fairness of opportunity, there has always remained the irreconcilable fact that white supremacy relegates African Americans to second class citizenship where momentary gains are easily and frequently reversed. The ultimate thrust of this paper is not toward pessimism or defeatism but rather a shifting of responsibility from what African Americans expect others to do for them to what they must accept about themselves, society and what these truths require of the African-American community.

African Americans: Values, Environment and Entrepreneurial Challenges
Dr. Kolade Wynn
Bloomsburg University

Current African American values and approaches to enterprise have evolved over time from our human need to create economic opportunities for ourselves and our communities. Our approaches toward business development have been shaped by a unique set of experiences which sets us apart from other groups that have migrated to the U.S. of their own volition. Paramount in this experience has been the attempt of African-American entrepreneurs to reconcile two vastly different cultural paradigms in order to develop economically. Another equally compelling force shaping the African-American entrepreneurial experience is the intractability of the forces of racial discrimination and hostility and the challenge of creating opportunity and economic institutions in an environment dominated by a hegemonic over-class. This research explores the intersection of African-American historical experiences, cultural values, and the forces in the macro environment that have shaped and continue to shape our performance as entrepreneurs.

12:15-1:30, Location: SC 138

Luncheon Lecture (Invitation Only)

Introduction: Samuel Pinn, professor of Social Work and Africana Studies, Ramapo College of New Jersey
Keynote: The Black Scholar in Perspective
Dr. Robert Chrisman, director of Black Studies, University of Nebraska Omaha, editor and co-founder, The Black Scholar

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1:45, Location: SC 136

Moderator: Dr. Virginia Gonslaves-Domond, Ramapo College of New Jersey

The Next Great Migration: From Michigan to Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Dr. Ben Wilson
Western Michigan University

Heritage and Education: Keeping the Local in Globalization
Dr. Ronald Dorris
Xavier University

In his Survey Graphic article, “Negro Education Bids for Par,” published in 1925, Harlem Renaissance promoter Alain Locke states that “The stock of Negro education has a heavy traditional discount, and is chronically under the market.” The purpose of this presentation is to show how globalization can erase the face of the Africana professoriate if, as Locke contends, there is a sag in both standards and facilities for the education of blacks. To eradicate this sag, this presentation posits that the standard for quality education of Africans throughout the Diaspora must be rooted in respective familiar culture as a foundation endowed to “beat the market” and to be of value to all clientele served, regardless of background.

Forced into Glory: The Deconstruction of Grutter v. Lee Bollinger et al.
Dr. Henry Vance Davis
Ramapo College of New Jersey

When the Supreme Court, in Barbara Grutter vs. Lee Bollinger et al. on 23 June of 2003, found race could be considered as a criteria for admission to the University of Michigan Law School, the school was hailed as the savior of affirmative action--and rightly so. Given the make up of the Court, America’s penchant for tiring of race issues, and the conservative Bush administration, Affirmative Action had faced its most serious challenge since its inception. The elite public school deserved the applause.

Michigan had built a program successful enough to draw the fire of the powerful anti-affirmative action forces and weathered the storm. Few asked how Michigan came to occupy the position to "draw fire." A close look at the aforementioned reveals another body of players at least as significant as the Bollingers, and Colemans. This is their story. It is additionally the story of minorities in predominately white colleges and universities. How they got there, stay there, and prosper there. It reveals the tactics and strategies of change and intransigence around issues of race. It also posits the way yet to travel.

6:00, Location: Pavilion 1 - 3

African Heritage Achievement Celebration
Introduction: Daniel Jean
Speaker: Hasani Pettiford, author
Celebration and recognition of 2004 African-American graduates.

10:00, Location: Pavilion 1

Break Out Sessions

12:00

"A Raisin In the Sun," (35.00 admission)
Featuring Phylicia Rashad, Sanaa Lathan, Audra McDonald and Sean (P. Diddy) Combs, Audra McDonald, & Sanaa Lathan.
Transportation provided from Friends Circle. Dinner and entertainment to follow.