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13 Year Old Caleb Anderson Begins Aerospace Engineering Program at Georgia Tech

Caleb Anderson

Aerospace engineering major 13-year-old Caleb Anderson started the Fall 2021 semester as the youngest student enrolled at Georgia Tech.

“This is the kind of school I have been wanting to go to for a very long time, and I am finally here,” he told Tech officials on Monday.

As the youngest student on campus, Anderson’s parents Kobi and Claire Anderson were there to offer support and bear witness to their teenaged son taking this remarkable step. As they watched him, they beamed with pride while balancing both worry and reassurance.

“Have we prepared him enough?” his mother asked out loud. “Have we taught him enough about failure?”

His father, however, felt confident. “He’s willing to be stretched,” he said. “He knows how to get back from a punch … and continues to strive.”

The family recognizes that even at his young age, Anderson is an inspiration to African American boys and young men aspiring to succeed in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields.

His story, Claire Anderson hopes, will “shift the perspective of what you see when you see a young Black man. This could be a future aerospace engineer.”

Still, Anderson remains a young teen who likes sleeping in and admits to being guilty of procrastinating. Things don’t come easy for him, and he knows that he has to put in work to be successful. Yet, as he took in everything around him Monday from his integral calculus class, the young genius was able to acknowledge his wonder and humility at it all.

“Wow, maybe I am advanced,” he said.

His parents are happy to see their son take this extraordinary step toward his future.

“I am really proud of him, but I am really grateful to Georgia Tech for opening a door of opportunity to a student like Caleb,” Claire Anderson said.

Anderson said he plans to earn a master’s degree from Georgia Tech after completing his undergraduate studies, and eventually work with the SpaceX program before starting his own company.

Ultimately, he said he wants to make sure other young gifted students have the opportunities he is now enjoying.

“I want to help others that may just need nurturing and resources,” Anderson said.

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2 mins read

Clark Atlanta University cancels student account balances for 2020-2021 school year

clark atlanta univarsity

Clark Atlanta University announced this week that they will cancel student account balances from the spring 2020 semester through the summer 2021 semester.

University President Dr. George T. French said all student account balances from that time period will be brought to zero. The relief also applies to alumni.

“We understand these past two academic years have been emotionally and financially difficult on students and their families due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why we will continue to do all we can to support their efforts to complete their CAU education,” said President French. “We care about students and want to lighten their individual and family’s financial load so they can continue their journey in pursuing and attaining their educational and professional goals.”

French said the university’s ability to provide relief is due to the substantial amount of support it has gotten from the federal government under the CARES Act Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund.

With the funds, CAU has been able to provide emergency financial aid dollars, refund some housing and meal charges, discount tuition and fees for the 2020-2021 school year, buy WIFI hot spots for students with no internet at home and buy 4,000 laptops for every financially enrolled student.

This initiative will not impact students’ future financial aid eligibility because it is a one-time outstanding balance cancelation.

Clark Atlanta University isn’t the first HBCU to help students financially because of the pandemic.
In May, Wilberforce University in Wilberforce, Ohio, announced it will cancel student debt for 2020 and 2021 graduates. The president of the university said at the time that the total amount of cleared debt would be more than $375,000.

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LSU offers National Spelling Bee winner, Zaila Avant-gard, a full scholarship

Zaila Avant-garde

Louisiana State University (LSU) on Saturday offered , Zaila Avant-garde, the first African American contestant to win the Scripps National Spelling Bee, a full scholarship.

https://twitter.com/WFTate4/status/1413903108288172033?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1413903108288172033%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthehill.com%2Fblogs%2Fin-the-know%2Fin-the-know%2F562417-lsu-president-offers-national-spelling-bee-winner-full

Avant-garde has drawn attention following her win. The teen has garnered praise in the past few days for her athletic prowess after it was noted the same child has notched multiple Guinness World Records for basketball.

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Curtis Lawrence III Graduated High School Early, Was Accepted to 14 Colleges and Chose an HBCU

Curtis Lawrence III

In 2014, Curtis Lawrence III began taking dual enrollment courses at School Without Walls High School and George Washington University.

This spring, he will earn his Associates Degree and head to FAMU where he will pursue a double major in computer science and biology as well as a minor in Mandarin.

Curtis Lawrence III

Lawrence has also been awarded over $1.65 Million in Merit Scholarships. He was also accepted to Howard University, North Carolina A&T University, Morehouse College, Hampton University, Morgan State University, Claflin University, Hutson-Tillotson University, George Washington University, West Virginia Wesleyan, UC Berkeley, the University of Chicago, Yale and Harvard.

Lawrence’s love for education started at a young age. His parents, both educators, instilled the importance of school into he and his younger brother Corey early on, constantly taking them on trips to different museums, colleges, states and countries to expose them to what the world has to offer.

The competition is stiff among universities to recruit top young scholars. Dedra O’Neal, director of the FAMU Scholarship Program, has conducted Zoom calls with alumni scholars and prospective students since last fall.

The recruitment effort deploys alumni based in places such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Zambia, the Caribbean, France, and across the U.S. to discuss the FAMU scholar experience with top prospective students.

FAMU President Dr. Larry Robinson lauded Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. William E. Hudson Jr. for his role in successfully recruiting Lawrence. Hudson visited Lawrence’s Washington, D.C., high school, School Without Walls at George Washington University, last fall.

Lawrence said FAMU felt like home and explained one of the reasons he wants to be a Rattler: “Especially as a young student having been able to meet other students who also started college early at FAMU, and so I was able to really know that FAMU will provide me with that academic and professional support on top of schooling.”

Curtis Lawrence III
Curtis and his family | Credit: TN Democrat

Florida A&M University is competing with the best schools in the country to get top of the line students, including sixteen year old Curtis Lawrence III.

The young scholar now with his sights set on his undergraduate degree in which he doesn’t have to pay a dime.

Lawrence III could’ve continued his education at almost any university in the country but for his undergrad degree, his parents pushed an HBCU.

“We felt that at their start, right, at those fundamental times when you figure it out yourself. Who am I? What am I going to do in life?,” explained Curtis’ father Curtis Lawrence Jr. “To be in an environment that we felt would be nurturing I’m very supportive of their development. So that was very very important for us to create that level of foundation.”

 

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Meet The Scientist and The Activist Creating a Prison to STEM Pipeline

scientist

Stanley Andrisse is a scientist. Syrita Steib is an activist. They are both breaking down barriers to help formerly incarcerated people pursue education and careers in science, technology, education, and mathematics. They have both founded organizations that provide people with convictions pathways to careers in STEM.

“I was seen as a criminal, less than an animal,” Andrisse recalls the moment he realized that he had been being prepared for prison his entire life. In 2008 in a Missouri courtroom, Stanley Andrisse was a promising college athlete and biology whose future would be altered forever by a 10-year sentence.

scientist
Dr. Stanley Andrisse, Executive Director, From Prison Cell to Ph.D.

After serving his time, Andrisse reconnected with a cancer researcher he’d worked for during a fellowship in school. Through the encouragement and help of his mentor, Andrisse graduated with a Ph.D. in 2014. Now the endocrinologist runs a nonprofit, From Prison Cells to Ph.D., that offers people with convictions opportunities like educational counseling, paid short-term internships, and other resources.

Syrita Steib, founder and executive director of nonprofit Operation Restoration, faced a 10-year sentence and a hefty nearly $2 million in restitution after committing a felony. Nothing could have prepared her for the barriers she faced when she attempted to enroll in college after her sentence.

scientist
Syrita Steib, Executive Director & Founder, Operation Restoration

She was only admitted to Lousiana State University after submitting an application with the felony box unchecked. Steib went on to complete her bachelor’s and founded Operation Restoration in 2016. The nonprofit supports current and formerly incarcerated women and has a one-of-a-kind lab assistant program that offers a direct pathway to a four-year degree.

Many college applicants with convictions aren’t rejected. The truth is, many applications never try. Stanley and Syrita aim to change that narrative.

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Master P Now Focused On Owning An HBCU Instead of an NBA Team

master p

A few days ago, Master P (born Percy Miller) took to his Instagram account to announce his desire to own an HBCU.

“So, y’all know I always wanted to own an NBA team, but now I want to own an HBCU. It’s so important that we educate the culture. This message is all about educating our people,” he said during the video clip.

“I was shocked when I Googled who owned and founded HBCUs,” Miller said. “We can’t change the past but we can change the future by investing in the next generation. They going to have to sell some of these schools to us, or fund it the same way other major universities are funded.”

During the video, Miller expressed that he once had a desire to attend Southern University, an HBCU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He encouraged others to join the movement to ensure that the nation’s historically Black colleges are able to offer proper education to our children.

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Black Owned EdTech App Raises $10.6 Million in Two Years

Black Owned EdTech

A year after it raised a seed round of $3.1m, Nigerian Education Technology (Edtech) platform, uLesson announced last week that it has closed a $7.5m Series A round.

US-based Owl Ventures led the financing round. The VC fund is the largest fund focused on the world’s edtech market, with over $1.2 billion in assets under management.

uLesson, the largest and fastest-growing learning platform in West Africa, is trying to bridge educational gaps for K-7 to K-12 students in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Gambia.

The online education platform launched in March of 2020, right at the beginning of the pandemic. However, due to school closings, students turned to online learning.  Between March and August, the company saw its number of paid subscribers quintuple.

Black Owned EdTech

“We are now witnessing an increased availability of data networks in Africa. With more affordable smartphones and the change in attitudes towards online learning accelerated by COVID-19, the foundations are now in place for an education revolution.

At uLesson, we know we have a critical role to play in this ‘new normal’ and this funding will be crucial in our drive to fill the major gaps in Africa’s education system through tech,” said Sim Shagaya, founder and CEO of uLesson.

 

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2020 Howard University Graduate Earns Ph.D. at Age 73

On April 26, 2020, Florence Didigu, 73, defended her dissertation to earn her Ph.D. in Communication, Culture and Media Studies. Her dissertation and future book titled, “Igbo Collective Memory of the Nigeria – Biafra War (1967-1970): Reclaiming Forgotten Women’s Voices and Building Peace through a Gendered Lens,” is a reflection of the Igbo women who, like herself, survived the war.

Howard Grad
Florence Didigu

Didigu, who is the oldest of five sisters, is graduating from Howard University with her fourth degree as a prestigious Sasakawa and Annenberg Fellow. She is thankful to have made it across many hurdles.

“In my second year at Howard, and very close to my screening test, I lost my mother and my father within months,” said Didigu. “I had to return to Nigeria each time to perform the demanding burial ceremonies for each. I was completely deflated, both physically and emotionally, but I persevered because my father always wanted me to be a ‘Doctor.’”

Didigu also battled shingles, which paralyzed the right side of her face and she lost her voice. It was symbolic because it’s her life’s work is to elevate more Igbo women’s voices too. “I was unable to speak clearly; this was the greatest tragedy of all since I was teaching a sophomore research course! The day I started speaking again and was discharged from the hospital was a special life moment.”

Yet, what she overcame 50 years ago, the Nigerian-Biafra War, a civil war between the Igbo people and the Nigerian government, is one challenge she will never forget.

“The day the Nigeria-Biafra War ended, I, like everyone was wallowing in anxiety and fear about what would happen to us as the vanquished. A very optimistic gentleman came over to me and asked: ‘Why are you so sad; can’t you see you have survived this terrible war?’ I stood up, even though the Nigerian Airforce was on its last bombing raid, and leaped up in the air in mad glee, repeating to myself and others: ‘Yes, I have survived, I am a survivor!’ This powerful survival instinct in me, which I call daring, and God’s help, are what made me overcome all personal challenges during my doctoral program and get to where I am today!”

She was once a producer and writer at the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), and a broadcast regulator at the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) in Nigeria prior to 2000. Upon graduation, Didigu plans to enter the professoriate and become a book author. She recently took courses at Howard in the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program. She plans to continue research and scholarly writings, as well as mentoring students to inspire and educate “the future generation that will move this discipline forward and tackle the communications-oriented challenges of the future.”

Carolyn Byerly, Ph.D.,  Didigu’s advisor and chair of the Communication, Culture and Media Studies doctoral program, noticed the excellence within her, noting that “she embodies endurance and intellectual determination.”

“I admire the way she delved inside the most painful period of her life to find the focus of her research on women, war and peace.  While a personally-driven project, she maintained the highest level of integrity and never made the research outcome about herself.  Florence received the Sasakawa Peace Foundation Fellowship in her last year to conduct interviews with 10 female survivors of that war, and she used feminist standpoint theory to interpret their stories.  It is a beautifully researched, theorized and written dissertation that demonstrates exceptional Howard scholarship.”

 

Source: Howard.edu

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Relief Funds May Soon be Used To Provide Grants To Homeschoolers

homeschoolers

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos plans to use $180 million in federal coronavirus relief earmarked for the hardest-hit states to create voucher-like grants for parents and to expand virtual education.

The education department will allow states to apply for a share of that money.

For DeVos, those priorities include directing more public education dollars to families, rather than school districts, and creating alternatives to traditional schools and instruction.

“The current disruption to the normal model is reaffirming something I have said for years: we must rethink education to better match the realities of the 21st century,” DeVos said in a statement Monday. “This is the time for local education leaders to unleash their creativity and ingenuity.”

In awarding these grants, the department says it will consider the coronavirus’ impact on a state — the stated purpose of the money, as allocated by Congress. But its criteria go far beyond that, raising the possibility that grants will end up in states that have not been hit hardest by the virus. Forty of the 100 points of the scoring rubric relate to a state’s coronavirus cases and ability to transition to remote instruction.

State education agencies can apply for federal money by proposing one of three things.

The first is “microgrants” — what some would call “vouchers” — meant to give families more options for remote learning. Those grants could be used to pay for tutoring, summer programs, tuition to a private or public school online program, counseling, test prep, or textbooks, among other things. The state must allow private organizations to provide those services.

The second option is for states to create a statewide virtual school or another program allowing students to access classes that their regular school doesn’t offer. States can either expand an existing program or create one from scratch.

The final option is nebulously defined: For a state to create “models for providing remote education not yet imagined, to ensure that every child is learning and preparing for successful careers and lives.”

The department says it expects to award grants of $5 million to $20 million for winning states — a tiny fraction of state education budgets and of the main pot of coronavirus response relief money headed to states. 

But during an economic downturn, states will likely be eager to get any extra money they can, and some of the ideas, like the creation of a statewide virtual school, could have a lasting impact.

The department’s regulations emphasize that students who attend private schools must be eligible to participate.

 

Source: Chalkbeat

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The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre will soon be a part of the curriculum for Oklahoma schools

tulsa race

Oklahoma leaders announced Wednesday the state will be moving forward with embedding the story of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre into the curriculum of all Oklahoma schools.

On the last day of May in 1921, a white mob estimated at 10,000 people descended on the Greenwood District — then an affluent black neighborhood in Tulsa known as Black Wall Street — and burned it to the ground. Hundreds of African-Americans were killed.
Tulsa Race

Hundreds more were unaccounted for. But that part of history went unmentioned for decades in classrooms across the state.

The killings remained “Tulsa’s dirty secret,” state Sen. Kevin Matthews said at a news conference Wednesday.

And while school districts have begun teaching about the massacre, State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister said in the news conference, the state’s education department will be releasing a curriculum framework this April to bolster those efforts throughout the state.

The framework, Hofmeister said, will give teachers “extra support and resources” when teaching about the massacre. “What we want to ensure is that … we are teaching in a grade-appropriate level those facts that have not been taught in a way they should have been taught in Oklahoma,” she said.

“This is … our history and we should know it.”

Tulsa Race

Starting this fall, students from elementary through high school will learn about the event, officials said.

Deborah A. Gist, the superintendent of Tulsa Public Schools — which ran a pilot program teaching the material that’s about to go statewide — said it wasn’t until after she got into teaching that she learned about the massacre, despite being a student of the school system she now oversees.

“What I’m deeply committed to in Tulsa Public Schools is making sure that never happens again,” she said.

With the century mark of the harrowing event approaching, Sen. James Lankford said at the news conference that the whole country will soon “pause … and will look at Tulsa and will ask the question ‘what has changed in race relations in Tulsa in 100 years.'”

“It’s a reasonable question,” he said. Teaching about what happened is a step toward progress, officials say.

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum said that going forward, the question is “how we can use this horrible tragedy to instruct and inform and make sure that nothing like this ever happens again.”

“This isn’t something that you just read about in history books and think that’s something that happened 100 years ago, it can never happen again,” he said at the news conference. “That’s exactly what people in 1921 in Tulsa probably thought too.”

He said he hopes to see more “black ownership of business in Greenwood and in Tulsa” in the future.

“This is an incredibly important thing for us to have moving forward in our city.”

 

Source: CNN

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