Campus & Community / Magazine Feature

DU hosting Black Male Summit April 19

The Center for Multicultural Excellence and the Leo Block Alumni Center at the University of Denver will partner with Denver-area schools to host the fourth annual Black Male Initiative Summit on Friday, April 19. This year’s theme is “I Am the Master of my Fate: Leadership, Education and Black Male Identity.” School leaders from across the Denver metro area are being asked to nominate students in in 8th and 9th grades who demonstrate strong leadership qualities and characters of excellence.

Organizers say they hope to cultivate the leadership potential of young black male students, and that their goal is to ensure that every participant leaves with a better understanding of his identity as a black male and what it takes to become a leader in his personal life, school, and community.

Throughout the day, students will have the opportunity to participate in workshops pertaining to black male identity, education and leadership. The summit also includes an adult learner track open to educators, counselors, parents or guardians.

William Cross, from the Morgridge College of Education, and Frank Tuitt, associate provost for inclusive excellence, will lead the adult learner track. Cross also will help to shape the framework for the facilitator training related to black male identity.

“Between the 1980s to the present, the American economy underwent massive restructuring, resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of good-paying factory jobs,” Cross says. “African-American adult workers in general — and black males in particular — were trapped in the resulting void, with disastrous social consequences. The Black Male Initiative Summit is one of many initiatives in the Denver area designed to communicate to black males that the city and the country value their contributions as students, workers and professionals, in addition to celebrating their experience as sons, brothers and fathers.”

For more information, including sponsorship opportunities and how to nominate students, visit http://www.du.edu/cme/bmis.html.

 

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