Make your deposit by September 15, 2010, on the official NCCU Rose Parade Tour. Visit www.nccu.edu/tournamentofroses for full details and to make your reservations.

The tour options include:

• Five or four night stay at the Sheraton Park Hotel at the Anaheim Resort
• Group airfare or Individual air travel
• Reserved grandstand parade seating
• Ticket to Dec. 30 Band Fest
• Parade float barn construction tour
• Airport transfers
• Local transportation to all package events with a local host
• Official Tournament of Roses Program
• NCCU social events: Welcome Reception and local hospitality provide by the NCCU Alumni Association Los Angeles Chapter
• Optional tours and option to purchase Rose Bowl tickets

Questions? Email alumni@nccu.edu or call (919) 530-6363.

North Carolina Central University Chancellor Charlie Nelms became the first official to pass the gates at the newly opened Latham Parking Deck, the university’s first high-rise parking structure.

Latham, a $15-million, 750-space parking deck, opened on scheduled at 7 a.m. Monday. Spaces in the deck cost $450, and entitle purchasers to a reserved, numbered space. A free shuttle service takes deck users to various stops throughout campus.

Moments before driving into the deck, Nelms was joined by Willie Williams, NCCU’s police chief, and Zack Abegunrin, associate vice chancellor for facilities management, in cutting a ribbon to ceremonially open the facility. The first fifty NCCU employees who entered the deck received a Centennial keepsake as a “Garage Door Prize.”

NCCU’s other large parking areas are surface lots. Latham, at the corner of Lawson and Lincoln streets, also will accommodate a bookstore and a campus police substation. That section of the building should be completed by November 19.

The facility takes the name of the former structure at the site, Latham Residence Hall. It was named for the highly regarded Louise M. Latham, dean of women from 1948 to 1968.

For information about parking, call the NCCU Police Department at 530-6106.

As September rolls around all who live in the Triangle area look forward to the annual Bull Durham Blues Festival schedule for September 10 and 11. This year with the change in location to the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC), the Bull Durham Blues Festival has added additional outreach programs to entice the traditional festival audience and embrace new ones.

Starting August 12 through September 3rd, St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation will sponsor four (4) Blues After Hours events “ALL ABOUT TOWN”. Each event is from 6pm – 8pm and free to the public. Blues lovers are invited out to enjoy great blues music, and indulge in food and beverages at each local restaurant or site location. Local and regional blues professionals will treat the audience to the best blues music to dance too or simply move your feet to.

The schedule is as follows:

August 12

Tad Walters Band

Papa Mojo’s Roadhouse

5410-Y Highway 55

August 20

th’ Bullfrog McGhee

Hayti Heritage Center

804 Old Fayetteville Street

August 26

Big Rick & The Bombers

Nasher Museum of Art

2001 Campus Dr.

September 3

Will MacFarlane

The Blue Note Grill

4125 Durham-Chapel Hill Blvd.

The Bull Durham Blues Festival will be held on September 10 & 11, 2010. Friday headlining the festival at the Hayti Heritage Center, doors open at 6PM show starts at 7PM, is Ruthie Foster Quartet, Mel Melton & The Wicked Mojos, and MSG The Acoustic Blues Trio. Special feature for Friday night will be the introduction of the Bull City Youth Blues Band. Saturday night the festival moves to the DPAC where headliner Buddy Guy, Bettye LaVette, The Wild Magnolias, Melva Houston, and Shades of Blue. Doors open at 5pm, show starts at 6PM.

A free outdoor concert will get everyone in the mood for some good ole blues on Saturday afternoon from 4pm – 6pm on the Capitol Broadcasting Company Plaza at DPAC where two local bands, Fat Bastards Blues Band and Hell Camino will take the stage to get you ready for the main course. This event is free to the public and vendors will be on site. Bring your lawn chairs and or blankets for the afternoon event.

Tickets for the Bull Durham Blues Festival are on sale now at www.bulldurhamblues.org or www.dpacnc.com, or call (919) 683-1709. Tickets are $35, $45 and $55.

The St. Joseph’s Historic Foundation, Inc. (SJHF) founded in 1975, is an African American cultural and educational institution deeply rooted in the historic Hayti community of Durham, North Carolina. SJHF is dedicated to advancing cultural understanding through diverse programs that examine the experiences of Americans of African descent – locally, nationally and globally. The Foundation is committed to preserving, restoring and developing the Hayti Heritage Center, the former St. Joseph’s AME Church, a National Historic Landmark, as a cultural and economic anchor to the greater Durham community. Funds raised from the event support the programs and operations of the Foundation and Hayti Heritage Center.

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I have the pleasure to announce that NCCU is the School of the Month for the Tom Joyner Foundation during August, 2010.

Tom Joyner is a celebrated morning talk show host and a successful businessman. But he’s also a philanthropist who’s raised more than $55 million for scholarships and the revitalization of historically black colleges and universities like mine, all across the country.

In his book I’m Just a DJ But…It Makes Sense to Me, Joyner spells out, in unapologetic terms, his bold-faced advocacy of HBCUs. It certainly endears him to us. There’s no better pitchman to publicize the subtle differences in approach to student success between mainstream and historically black universities.

Our secret’s not safe with him and thank goodness for that! He’s telling the world about our nurturing environment, commitment to student success, by which I mean, graduation, and the HBCU experience.

He writes, “A good HBCU will take what you have and make it better.”

That sounds about right to me.

Being a philanthropist is a choice. The Tom Joyner Foundation began with a 900 number that people were asked to call to donate $5. We may not all have thousands in the bank to donate to a worthy cause but most of us have $5. Tom’s example shows us that we can all be philanthropists to the extent that we are able, but we need to make that choice.

Throughout the month of August, let him know you choose to support NCCU.

Sincerely,
Charlie Nelms

North Carolina Central University officials are inviting the public to a 100th birthday bash on campus on July 8.

The celebration will include dedications of a newly installed Centennial Garden on Fayetteville Street, the Centennial Chapel, (the relocated and repurposed Holy Cross Church) and a historic plaque commemorating the former site of Hillside High School. It is the final celebration of NCCU’s centennial.

The birthday celebration will be held from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on and about the Brant Street plaza. After the dedications, the party will start with birthday cake and music.

Free parking will be available at NCCU lots on Lawson Street and Nelson Street and with shuttle service from St. Titus and St. Joseph’s church lots.

The celebration originally was planned for July 10, but was rescheduled to better conform to the itinerary for the North Carolina Central University Alumni Association’s National Convention and Centennial Celebration, which is being held in Durham from July 8 through July 10. Alumni can register for the convention and view the updated schedule of events at www.nccualumni.org.

The Centennial Garden, currently under construction, will be a swirling pattern of walkways and perennial plantings, with a mix of shrubs and hardwood and flowering trees. It will feature a fountain, and is situated on Fayetteville Street between the Shepard House and the former Holy Cross Church.

In April, the Holy Cross Roman Catholic Church was moved from Alston Avenue on the eastern edge of campus to the Fayetteville Street site. A new NCCU nursing school facility is being built on the Alston Avenue land. The stone chapel building, once home to a mainly African-American Catholic congregation since 1953, is now owned by NCCU and will be used mainly for meetings. The Diocese of Eastern North Carolina built a new facility for the congregation in 2006.

For nearly half a century, Hillside High School was Durham’s secondary school for African-Americans, at a time when segregation ruled the South. Hillside was integrated in the 1960s. The building, on Concord Street, was closed in 1995 when the Durham Public Schools built a new structure further south on Fayetteville Street. The school system donated the building to NCCU, which demolished it and used the acreage for its Mary M. Townes Science Building and the Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprise.

At first named the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua for the Colored Race, NCCU opened its doors to students on July 5, 1910, when Durham was a small tobacco town, and opportunities for higher education for African-Americans were slight. In less than two decades, the institution had become the first African-American liberal arts college in the nation to receive taxpayer support.

The founder was Dr. James E. Shepard, a pharmacist trained at Shaw University in nearby Raleigh. Shepard became a national leader in education, especially for African-Americans, as well as a business and religious leader.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the NCCU Office of Public Relations at (919) 530-6295.

A resolution (H.Res.1361) recognizing the Centennial of North Carolina Central University will be considered on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives today. Representatives, including resolution sponsor Rep. David Price (D-N.C.), will speak in support of the resolution. Click here to read the resolution.

Co-sponsors of the resolution include: Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D- N.C.), Rep. Cathy Castor (D- Fla.), Rep. William Lacy Clay (D- Mo.), Rep. Howard Coble (R- N.C.), Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.), Rep. Danny Davis (D- Ill.), Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-N.C.), Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), Rep. Hank Johnson (D- Ga.), Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), Rep. Larry Kissell (D-N.C.), Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.), Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.), Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.), Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.), Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.).

Six people with ties to North Carolina Central University will be recipients of a newly created honor, called the Shepard Medallion, as part of the university’s 100th anniversary.

The six are:

Julius Chambers, an NCCU alumnus, legal champion for civil rights and Chancellor Emeritus; H.M. “Mickey” Michaux Jr., an NCCU alumnus whose long career as a member of the state House of Representatives has focused on the fight for higher education, particularly for minority students; Mattie Sharpless, an NCCU alumna, former U.S. ambassador and longtime foreign agricultural envoy; LeRoy Walker, chancellor emeritus and past NCCU and Olympic track coach, and the first black president of the U.S. Olympic Committee; Peggy Ward, an alumna, former NCCU trustee and award-winning agent for a national life insurance company, and NCCU Chancellor emeritus Albert N. Whiting.

Five of the six are scheduled to receive the specially designed bronze medallions at the university’s Centennial Gala on May 22 at the Durham Performing Arts Center. Whiting’s travel plans from his home in Maryland were uncertain on Tuesday. Nominees for the Shepard Medallion were solicited from the campus and nationally. From that pool, a campus committee recommended a handful of finalists to NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms, who picked the honorees.

Nelms commissioned the medal to recognize people, associated with the university, who have made significant contributions to the school, to their communities or to their professions. The contributions must be in keeping with the public university’s motto, “Truth and Service.”

“Our rather small university has produced more than its share of leaders, in every sphere of endeavor,” Nelms said in announcing the awardees. “We’ve sent legislators to Washington and Raleigh, and scientists to the most prestigious laboratories in the nation. Our faculty and students served in the trenches of the civil rights movement. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of NCCU-trained teachers have educated our school children and college students. These people we honor rise to the top of anyone’s list of exemplars of service and achievement.”

Chambers was NCCU’s chancellor from 1993 to 2001. A 1958 graduate of the school and a president of the student body, he went on to obtain a law degree and fought key civil rights court cases. His Charlotte law firm, the first integrated firm in the state, is credited with influencing more landmark state and federal legislation in school desegregation, employment and voting rights than any other in the United States.

Michaux received his undergraduate and law degrees from NCCU, in 1952 and 1964, respectively. He became the first African-American U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, and first won a seat in the state House of Representatives in 1972. He is considered the dean of the General Assembly, and in recent years, has guided the annual state budget through the chamber. He has tirelessly campaigned for adequate funding for NCCU and other minority universities.

Sharpless received a bachelor’s in business education in 1965 and a master’s in business administration and economics in 1972 from NCCU. She joined the U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service in 1965 and was its acting administrator for much of 2001. Following that position, Sharpless was named U.S. Ambassador to the Central African Republic, where she served until a coup toppled that nation’s government in 2003. With that posting, however, Sharpless became the first woman agricultural attaché to serve as an ambassador. She retired in 2006.

Walker was chancellor from 1983 to 1986, but he was a familiar figure on the NCCU campus. Walker became head track and field coach at NCCU in 1945. He went on to chair the physical education and recreation departments. His track teams at NCCU were legendary, and many of the members competed in the Olympics across the span of decades. He was president of the U.S. Olympic Committee and in 1987 was inducted into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.

Ward is a 1974 alumna of NCCU. She is a longtime agent for New York Life Insurance Co., where she has won numerous awards for her service to the company and to her clients. Ward served on the university’s Board of Trustees from 1993 until 1997, and was chairman of the board from 1995 until 1997. She also served on the board of trustees of UNC-TV, part of the University of North Carolina system, and chair of that board’s Advancement Committee.

Whiting was NCCU’s last president and first chancellor. Named president of North Carolina College in 1967, Whiting was chief executive when the university was made part of the UNC system in 1972 and the name of his position changed to chancellor. Under Whiting, NCCU’s School of Business was created and programs in public administration and criminal justice were launched.

The medallion features a likeness of Shepard’s statue in front of NCCU’s administration building and the date of the school’s opening. On its reverse, the phrase “The Shepard Medallion” is written in raised letters. The recipients’ names will be engraved on each.

The May 22 gala is one of the more formal events in NCCU’s yearlong centennial celebration. Dr. James E. Shepard, a pharmacist and academic and business leader, chartered his school in 1909. Then called the National Religious Training School and Chautauqua, the school formally opened its doors to students on July 5, 1910.

Tickets to the gala are $100, and can be purchased online at www.nccu.edu/gala.

The medallion was struck by Recognition Products International, a Maryland company that manufactures the Pulitzer Prize medal as well as the University Award medallion, presented annually by the board of governors of the 17-campus University of North Carolina system for illustrious service to higher education.

Sponsors of the Gala include State Farm Insurance Co., The Forest At Duke and The Freelon Group.

The NCCU Board of Trustees is scheduled to meet on Tuesday in the Chancellor’s Dining Room of the Pearson Cafeteria and Wednesday in the Emma Marable Conference Room of the William Jones Building, Room 110. The agenda is attached and below.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

8:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Continental Breakfast
Chancellor’s Dining Room, Pearson Cafeteria

9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Policy Discussion
North Carolina Central University Strategic Plans
Chancellor Nelms and Johnnie Southerland

COMMITTEE MEETINGS

10:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. Finance Committee
Perry*, Ruffin, Adams, Pope, Wysenski
Chancellor’s Dining Room, Pearson Cafeteria

10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Board of Trustees of the Endowment Fund
Adams*, Epps, Baron, Dolan, Hamilton, Johnson, Thornton, Nelms
Chancellor’s Dining Room, Pearson Cafeteria

11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Personnel Committee
Hamilton*, Baron, Adams, Dolan, Epps, Thomas
Chancellor’s Dining Room, Pearson Cafeteria

12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. LUNCH (Trustees and Vice Chancellors only)
Culinary Laboratory, Pearson Cafeteria

1:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. Audit Committee
Michaux*, Wysenski, Epps, Hamilton, Pope
Chancellor’s Dining Room, Pearson Cafeteria

2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. Educational Planning and Academic Affairs Committee
Dolan*, Pope, Johnson, Perry, Thornton, Thomas
Chancellor’s Dining Room, Pearson Cafeteria

3:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. Institutional Advancement
Ruffin*, Hamilton, Epps, Michaux, Thornton, Wysenski
Chancellor’s Dining Room, Pearson Cafeteria

3:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Building Committee
Baron*, Dolan, Michaux, Perry, Pope, Ruffin
Chancellor’s Dining Room, Pearson Cafeteria

4:15 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. Trustee-Student Relations Committee
Thomas*, Johnson, Michaux, Ruffin, Thornton, Wysenski
Chancellor’s Dining Room, Pearson Cafeteria

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

9:00 a.m. Board of Trustees Meeting
Emma Marable Conference Room
Room 110, William Jones Building

11:30 a.m. LUNCH
Emma Marable Conference Room
Room 110, William Jones Building

MEETING TIMES SUBJECT TO CHANGE

North Carolina Central University is pleased to announce the return of Inside NCCU to WNCU 90.7 FM after a six-month hiatus. The program will air on Saturday mornings at 9 a.m. starting May 1. With special guests from the NCCU community, it will offer lively conversations with real people, and will entertain and inform listeners on the happenings of this bustling campus.

“We’re committed to keeping the public apprised of the news and events at Durham’s only public university,” said Cynthia Fobert, NCCU director of public relations. “Many of our lectures, exhibits, and concerts are free and open to the community and we want to make sure our listeners know they’re welcome on our campus.”

“We are delighted that the show can air again during the 100th anniversary of the institution,” said WNCU general manager Lackisha Sykes Freeman. “We hope this show will spotlight the good work that NCCU does.”

The show will feature the voice of new Eagle Myra Wooten as host. She is a public communications specialist in the Office of Public Relations. “There are great things happening at NCCU, and this program gives us the platform to showcase that,” Wooten said. “I am thrilled that I get to bring this information to our community.”

Inside NCCU is a weekly 30-minute program. Listeners can also hear it online at www.wncu.org. To contribute show ideas or to be a guest on the program, contact the Office of Public Relations at 530-7219 or publicrelations@nccu.edu.

As part of an ongoing initiative to serve our listeners in the public interest, WNCU 90.7 FM invites you to listen to and participate in a community-based program to meet with candidates running to fill seats on the Durham County School Board.

WNCU 90.7 FM will air a live town hall meeting in the auditorium of the H. M. Mickey Michaux School of Education on the campus of North Carolina Central University on Saturday May 1, 2010 from 9:30 a.m. until 11:00 a.m. This event is free and open to the public. Meeting attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions of the candidates during the meeting. The program will also stream live.