Classic!! My Presidents! About nine months after Katrina and four months back on campus President Obama (then Senator Obama) came to Xavier University of Louisiana to deliver the commencement address for the Class of 2006. It was a tough time for a lot of people. Faculty and staff were living on campus in trailers that filled the Washington Ave student parking lot. Many struggled to collect insurance to repair homes or pay for new ones elsewhere, some still searched for loved ones and the city barely realized what its future would hold. But the gentleman on the right, Dr. Norman C. Francis, believed that New Orleans would recover and most of all that Xavier would return…stronger than ever. The gentleman on the left also believed. He believed that America would see his leadership as a community organizer, lawyer and Senator from Illinois would be enough to qualify him as the next leader of the free world. He believed that in spite of his youth, background and lineage and his name, Senator Barack Obama would become the first African American President of the United States of America.
On his 2008 “Yes We Can” campaign we remember so well Senator Obama returned to New Orleans to reconnect with his constituency here and no doubt sit with a friend and mentor, Dr. Francis. I believe that President Obama has returned to New Orleans and specifically Xavier University this August 29th to continue to encourage and support us as we continue to recover and rebuild the University for this generation of young people and the next. Although, having dined on a similar bowl of seafood gumbo at Dooky Chase myself, he might be just trying to sneak in another bowl at one if New Orleans’ favorite spots.
New Beginnings. A phrase that’s somewhat redundant but often used for its impact. We are beginning anew. A fresh new academic year is here with new challenges for many of you, new opportunities…a new, clean slate as they say. It is true that newness brings a revitalized perspective and attention. We care more for things new than old or used because we want to preserve that newness, and enjoy that fresh clean feeling. But alas, it is futility at its best.
We all know that mortality and the material things find corruption sooner than we’d like. Even maturity is the corruption of youth and innocence and is inevitable no matter how hard we try to delay it. With this sobering thought how will we pursue this, the first academic year in college?
Let’s strive for the best we can be! The passage of time rewards us with knowledge, insight and experiences we never had. Yes, some will not handle this responsibility and they will fail. But time continues to provide us opportunities to grow, develop, learn and experience failures as well as successes. You may fail where others succeed…but God is Just and failure as does success finds its way to us all. Time and perseverance are your friends and they work together to help you become what you were meant to be.
Freshman seminar places only one real demand on its students: participate and persevere. The First Year Experience in college has been studied in depth and the best way to succeed in that first year is to acknowledge that it is challenging and admit it and adjust! To not acknowledge a challenge is a behavior that plagues us all in various way because to admit the need for help or to be wrong, ill-prepared, incompetent, incapable or weak in anyway is against the core of our very nature. We feel basic survival requires strength, intelligence, ability, creativity, health (physical and emotional) and in no way admits to needing help. We are infused with the understanding that needing help is a sign of weakness and the inability to survive. As a result, some of us do not survive for when help is there we refuse it and die in our pride.
I am one of many who will tell you that life may have evolved through actions and reactions between many different states of molecular matter. This basic material for life was present within different environments. Through trial and error and the support and sacrifice of many millions of possible molecular combinations, support systems, temperatures and pressure variations…life survived. Life survived but it has become something today what it was not at the beginning. Through survival of not just one system, organism or molecule but through a series of successes and failures involving many combinations of support strategies life has been sustained on earth for many millions of years. And you know what…it is not finished! Evolution is an ongoing process, as are you. Life finishes evolving when it no longer changes, no longer improves or supports other life processes. When life finishes evolving…life is finished.
You will evolve these next few years. You will not be what you came here as even after one year. You will learn, grow, develop, change and begin the transformation into part of the Freshman class, part of the university, the community and the world.
It is a privilege for me to support your evolution. Will you support mine?
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I’ve took recent notice to the aging of my parents, thus making my appreciation for their time here grow.
More-so my father than my mother. Fathering three children, none of whom pursued his talent of music. We are all musically inclined; give us just about any instrument and we’ll be able to pick out a short tune, but none of us quite love music the way he does.
In efforts to not have his legacy go to waste, I’m attempting to combine both his and my passions together. I have a passion for cinematography, and he music.
I want to make a short documentary or biography of his life as a musician. He’s a locally known artist, a talented guitarist, and a wonderful father; these are the three qualities i wish to embellish in my film. Although he’s never really made it mainstream, I don’t think he wants to. He’s humble in his field and he doesn’t play music in hopes of getting rich quick, he does it because it’s what he loves. He’d probably pay for free all the time if the price of life wasn’t so expensive.
I just want him to be remembered. I want to remember him the way I know him and I think working with him to document his experiences, travels, and performances would be a fun summer project and a life-long memory.
How do you use this…
If you’re new to blogging…Tumblr is a good place to start. How do you start?
NPR.org - Car Bomb In Times Square...and His Mercy Abounds
- DocCarroll thought you would be interested in this story:
- Car Bomb In Times Square Fails To Explode
- http: //www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126453381&sc=emaf
- His Mercy Abounds!!!
- My daughter was conflicted about her trip to New York. Her class has been looking forward to it all year. When it was time to go she was excited and they had a great time. That was 1 week from a potential disaster of monumental proportions...a car bomb outside the Lion King...she really enjoyed that show!
Spring is in the air…and summer is drawing near. You have paid your dues and have earned the respect of family and friends now that you have nearly completed your first year of college. As many of you have said, it was a good experience sometimes…bad at others. Welcome to life. If you say its all one way or the other, I’d know you were lying! Challenges are a part of life. Strength comes from resistance training and Xavier sees to it that that training is rigorous and regular to produce results!
Some of your challenges were academic, some were health, both mental and physical, and others a mixture of it all, but you have risen to these challenges and will continue to fight the good fight.
It was truly a pleasure being a part of your first year experience here at Xavier. It always amazes me how the stories rarely ever change…only the faces. But now even some of the faces are familiar to me as my colleagues and friends from my days at Xavier have sent their children to Xavier!
My first year was at Loyola University, down the street. And though there were probably similarities in my first year experience there compared to yours here at Xavier I can never share with my friend from Xavier what you can…those eye opening and awe inspiring first days of class when you and your classmates realized…this will be a challenge.
Continue posting if you like. My sections next year will begin as you did on Tumblr so stick around and offer encouragement and support as no one but you can do for the next generation of first year students. Good luck and God Bless you all.
Dr. Carroll
Rarely do I share with the class my rants and ravings on my other blogs but this one is worth noting. Mrs. Lena Dandridge-Houston (the bane of my existence…in a good way) celebrated 45 years since the beginning of her father, Authur’s, campaign to be fairly treated at Riverdale High School and within the educational system in Jefferson Parish in 1965. She has become the focus of my efforts today along with other parents of various racial backgrounds to get the Jefferson Parish School Board to see that we live in a global society. Segregating society is counterproductive, creating mental and emotional instability, anxiety and stressful relationships and unhealthy competitiveness and favoritism that will ultimately destroy a community. I just can’t tolerate…!!!!…let me stop and do the dishes and you check out some of my rants in the right margin.
We need the students to become graduates with advanced degrees to be the professors to help the students graduate with advanced degrees.
Consider the time that has transpired since Brown v Board of Ed. The fact that I am right now in the middle of a desegregation consent order in Jefferson Parish lets me know we still have a long way to go! Sometimes I wonder if W.E.B Dubois was right in his opposition to Walter White and the NAACP who opposed segregation feeling as Dubois did that we should have a component particularly in education that should remain separated and engaged solely in the development of our own people. Role models, mentors, teachers, parents and colleagues all play a part in making successfully engaged STEM and non-STEM students. These are part of every homogeneous culture in the world but disparate in most every heterogeneous society…like America!
This is a panel discussion focusing on how blogs are changing the nature of academic discourse. This is not a workshop on “how to blog” but an examination of the value and impact (positive or negative) of academic blogs within specific disciplines. Come on out and see how your colleagues perceive this medium and what we think the future expectations will be in the world of Blogs.
I posted a video last year showing a group of young women stepping at one of Xavier’s step-off contests. Certainly new to me these women stepped out to show what I thought was a brave attempt to pay homage to the art. Flashing forward to today…
Just last month Arkansas’ Epsilon Chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha sorority put on a 1st place performance at the Coca Cola/Sprite Step Off in Atlanta GA winning $100,000. Some might feel a sudden sinking feeling as you watch this and consider the implications but after watching the event myself it was evident that fairness was overcome by grief. Yes, Coca after further review of the grief (not the scores) that beset the competition conceded to awarding the “second best” competitors, Indiana University’s Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, an additional prize of $100,000.
My people let me just say, we have seen our demeanor and walk, our style of dress and hair, our cars and music, our food and art copied around the world. We have talent, we have drive and imagination, we have vision and plans and this the world knows. What I believe we lack is the discipline, patience, focus and unity to finish the course. What those girls did for first place was no different or original than what I have seen even at Xavier. But went the challenge is brought to bare…we can not faint and give into the fear of the past. If we are to progress we have to get better and better against all odds. We have to continue to innovate and produce. We can’t become a better people if we operate out of fear of not getting a fair chance. We can make our own chances, decide our own fate and rise to all challenges put before us with dignity and respect for our competitors and ourselves. What do you have to say?
STUDY STUDY STUDY…PRAY PRAY PRAY…in that order!
Hello Out there,
So after all the fun of Mardi Gras, it is time for me to buckle down and get focused for mid terms. Mid terms are a major determining factor in your grades for the semester. Basically it will be very wise of me to take these exams seriously. So this means that it is time to put…
Never have I witnessed a more classic tale of a father’s failure to tame the beast and ultimately have a son grow to gain the victory. The countless tales by Homer of father and son battles for good over evil, power over servitude, infidelity over loyalty. In the Old Testament Saul, the father, must unwillingly pay homage to his son, David, and the Kingdom rejoiced. In more recent times, our Country found itself in conflict with a nation begun by the father George H. only to be vindicated by the son George W….which begs point.
It was a spectacular game. A battle between a Titan and an Underdog. The talent of the Underdog was evident and the determination of the Titan was unmistakable. The history and legend of the Underdog was unprecedented. Generations have been born and have died telling the same story of woe. A nation has come to see epic failure and defeat time after time after time until it became a moniker of pride to have been there when the defeat was most heartbreaking.
The talent of the Titan is legendary. Historical battles won and lost yet remembered by all as truly momentous events. Great Heroes rose from these battles who live on today in our memories and in our stories of awe. Without question the objective to win was part of the fabric that makes them Titans.
One thing has plagued my mind this morning of the victorious parade for the Underdog…the leader of these legendary Titans is the son of the unprecedented Underdogs…and the Kingdom rejoiced. Who would you say was the true victor?
I Really Became Interested In This….
A shout out to Black History Month.
When I signed up for my African American studies class, I was not expecting to be this interested in it. I have learned a lot so far even though I have only been in the class for about three weeks. This class is focusing on the African American perspective on society. At this moment, we are looking deep into slavery and how it affected millions of Africans who were transported to the Americas. One thing that was very interesting to me that my professor made me aware of is that reportedly 4,400,000 people lived in the United States during the slavery period. However, 4 million of those people were African slaves. This number is mind boggling because it made me understand the true depth of slavery. You know…a lot of people believe slavery was in the South and only in the South. But have people ever took into consideration how New York City was built. It was built by African slaves. Yes, the North eventually despised slavery and was against it, but this is the area that slaves first populated. Just imagine not knowing where you are going and being forced to imitate a foreign culture. The obstacles African slaves were forced to overcome in order to keep their sanity, is the same obstacles we as African Americans face today, but with a modern twist. Our ancestors implemented that survival mentality that most African Americans have. This class has been an eye opener and I really enjoy it! Lastly, I want to give one final announcement: Who Dat…We Dat! Go Saints!!!!
