Jan 22, 2018 | Uncategorized
College of Health Sciences Dean Kathleen Matt (far right) is on her second year teaching ‘Introduction to Health Sciences’ in local high schools. Article by Dante LaPenta Photos by Ashley Barnas and Alyssa Benjamin
Engaging local high school students to inspire future healthcare workforce
The University of Delaware College of Health Sciences (CHS) is expanding engagement locally by giving high school students a jumpstart as they prepare for college. With a focus on Delawareans and underrepresented students, the UD College of Health Sciences Pipeline Program exposes middle and high school students to the breadth of health sciences career choices and aids in preparation for the academic rigor of higher education. A goal is to recruit and develop highly educated professionals — the future local leaders of the healthcare profession. Investing in these students provides opportunities for them to be competitive and better prepared for college.
“This is one piece of creating a diverse workforce,” said CHS Dean Kathleen Matt. “Healthcare is delivered to individuals from a broad range of backgrounds and it’s important that we have a workforce in Delaware that reflects those we serve as they deliver quality care.”
Matt is leading by example. At Newark High School, she’s taught Introduction to Health Sciences, a dual-credit course for 26 juniors and seniors. The course explores the interaction between healthcare professionals, government policy and individual demand for healthcare as the industry works towards long-term solutions to healthcare challenges.
“We wanted to create a class and a pipeline because these students are the ones who help us reimagine what effective healthcare really looks like,” Matt said. “We wanted to reach back further to get them engaged sooner so that they see the possibilities and opportunities available to them. It’s important for high school students to get a glimpse into what it will be like in college. That’s why we chose the format of having them engage with University faculty and community partners.”
And Newark students have really taken to the course.
“The class is very eye-opening of what a college course is. It’s very different from a high school class,” Newark student Micah Howard-Sparks said. “We have guest speakers who give lectures on their jobs, their life, their education and what they are doing to improve the healthcare of our country.”
In the spring semester, the same students will take another CHS class, Introduction to Medical Laboratory Sciences. The juniors in the class will then have a chance to take two additional CHS courses during their senior year.
In true Delaware fashion, the connections run deep. Matt is a Newark High School graduate. Her passion for UD and her high school alma mater blend perfectly in this unique course.
“I grew up in this community,” she said. “To me, it goes without saying that a school like Newark High School, which is right in the neighborhood of our University, should benefit from engaging with UD. The University should add value to its community.”
Read more — UDaily —
Jan 16, 2018 | Uncategorized
When Martin Luther King Jr. spoke, America listened. His legacy is more than his message — it’s the power with which it was delivered.
2016 MLK Communications Contest Kaamilah Diabate hosts the 2018 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Communication Contest Sunday at the Baby Grand in Wilmington. (Photo: Jerry Habraken, The News Journal)
Seven teenagers spent Sunday in a Wilmington opera house, speaking the message of their hearts, driven by King’s hope for the future. Fifty years after his death, they channeled his gift for oratory through their own unique talents.
The high school students who participated in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Communication Contest used speeches, rap, poetry and verse to tell their truths. They were charged with reflecting on King’s message of social justice through a modern lens.
“Dear Mr. King, I cannot dream anymore because every time I close my eyes I see children without fathers that will grow to be monsters because their dreams were ignored, and it’s hard. It’s hard to dream when you sleep on the floor ’cause you’re poor, and tell me Mr. King, please, what are their dreams compared to yours,” said Lake Forest High School senior Lester Fair, his letter to King told in a flowing verse earning him second place.
The speeches were passionate, the voices of young people with their own experiences of the nation’s racial divide, of violence on TV and in their neighborhoods. They were colored with both optimism and doubt, parsed out in careful verse or spit rapid fire.
“As I look into the depths of my mirror, I stand there in all my black girl magic and beauty and I wonder, who am I,” said Charter School of Wilmington Sophomore Deborah Olatunji in her third-place speech. “We won’t keep quiet because I am 2018, a year of change.”
Read more — delawareonline (The News Journal)
Jan 16, 2018 | Uncategorized
Hassan El-Amin is Martin Luther King Jr. in UD REP’s “The Mountaintop.” Courtesy of N. Howatt/REP
For an hour and a half nearly every day for a month, Hassan El-Amin is Martin Luther King at the University of Delaware.
He plays the Civil Rights leader on the last night of his life, right after he’s giving his “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech and right before he walks out on the balcony of a Memphis motel and is shot to death on April 4, 1968.
It’s an honor, El-Amin says of starring in “The Mountaintop” through Sunday, Oct. 8. It’s challenging. It’s emotionally draining. And tiring. He and his co-star talk for nearly the entire 90 minutes.
It’s also the kind of role that El-Amin lives for.
The 62-year-old actor, who grew up in San Diego and earned an undergraduate degree from San Diego State, got his master’s degree in UD’s now-mothballed Professional Theater Training Program before working in regional theater around the country. He wanted to play classical theater roles, he says.
He came home to Newark last year to join the professional Resident Ensemble Players and since has played a variety of roles in “Gods of Carnage,” “Clybourne Park,” “The Bells,” “Elephant Man” and “Tartuffe,” As MLK in “The Mountaintop,” it’s the first time the show has hung on his shoulders.
Read more — delawareonline (The News Journal)
Jan 16, 2018 | Uncategorized
Biden, Blunt-Rochester say King’s words still relevant today:
Former Vice President Joe Biden gives the keynote address during the Delaware State Bar Association Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast & Statewide Day of Service Monday at the Chase Center. (Photo: Jerry Habraken, The News Journal)
Five months removed from neo-Nazis marching with torches in hand at one of America’s most prestigious universities, and a day removed from the president of the United States having to publicly state he’s not a racist, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was a reminder that the civil rights activist’s words are just as relevant now as they were 50 years ago.
That sentiment was expressed by Delaware congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester and echoed by others, including keynote speaker Joe Biden, Monday morning at the Delaware State Bar Association’s annual Martin Luther King, Jr. breakfast at the Chase Center on the Riverfront in Wilmington.
The event, one of many in the area to honor the Nobel Peace Prize winner, brought members of the bar, community leaders and elected officials together.
Blunt Rochester, the state’s first woman and first African-American representative in Congress, said she was told to be short and pithy before she spoke at the podium.
“This is not the year for short and pithy,” Blunt Rochester said.
“In this year, I’ve seen that King is more relevant today than ever,” she added. “Because King fought for human rights like health care. Guess what? We’re still fighting for health care. King fought for justice. Guess what? One in three Americans has a criminal record. We’re still fighting for justice. King fought for peace. Right now, we’re concerned with whether or not someone is going to press that big button and blow us all up.”
Biden said he was invited to give the keynote to speak about what lessons learned from Dr. King’s leadership may still be especially relevant today. The former vice president, who some say is using these speaking engagements to elevate his profile for a run in 2020, called King one of his two political heroes along with Robert F. Kennedy….
Read more — delawareonline (The News Journal)
Jan 16, 2018 | Uncategorized
Event facilitator and 2015 UD graduate Shyanne Miller presented questions to those attending a MLK Day discussion at Newark United Methodist Church on Monday, Jan. 15.
In 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote an open letter on scraps of available paper while he sat in a jail cell in Birmingham, Alabama. That now-famous letter was in response to eight white religious leaders who criticized King’s methods and, nearly 50 years after his death, it is often referenced when remembering Dr. King and his legacy.
About 100 people, many from the University of Delaware, gathered at the Newark United Methodist Church on Monday, Jan. 15, to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a national holiday.
Seven diverse speakers read aloud from portions of “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” The program brought together people from various groups, including the UD community, the Newark branch of the NAACP and elected officials, including Delaware’s U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, a UD alumna.
Event facilitator and 2015 UD graduate Shyanne Miller presented questions to those attending, and a microphone was passed around for those who wanted to share their thoughts. After Miller posed the question, “So what is being said here about the white moderate?” Blunt Rochester took the microphone, explaining that she was moved to speak.
“This room tonight is so beautiful,” said Blunt Rochester. “There’s black, white, young, old, millenials, everybody. I just want to thank you.”
The hourlong program concluded with a song. Everyone rose and sang in unison, “We Shall Overcome.”
After the program, event facilitator Miller said she was pleased with the turnout, but there is always more work to be done.
“I’m black. Had I been born maybe 30 years prior, I would have been right smack dab in the middle of the civil rights movement,” said Miller. “The whole point of the civil rights movement was to dismantle Jim Crow. Clearly, if we are still talking about New Jim Crow, everything he said in this letter is completely relevant today.”
Naomi Seinsoth, a member of the church and 1974 UD graduate, said she never read the letter before and found it sobering in light of today’s race relations. Dr. King would have been 89 on Monday; he was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
“I was 11 and got on the school bus one morning, and they told us Dr. King was killed,” said Seinsoth. “Nothing’s ever been the same. But his memory is with us.”
Cami Seward (left) and Florine Henderson at Monday’s MLK Day event at the Newark United Methodist Church.
Florine Henderson, who recently retired from the admissions office after working 32 years at UD, said the event allowed her to really reflect.
“I think of all that has been done to help me become who I am, to pave the way for my children and my grandchildren,” Henderson said. “To allow me to be all that I am. I think of the path. The people who have tread the path and made a path through the wilderness for me to be able to stand and be who I am today. People have given their lives for me and I think Martin Luther King was the ultimate sacrifice.”
Cami Seward, a member of the Coalition to Dismantle the New Jim Crow, organized the event. It was modeled after a similar one she attended in recent years at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. This was the first year at the church.
“I’ve been wanting a group in Newark to remember and work with the words of Martin Luther King as they are written in ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail,’” Seward said. “So, this year it’s come together.”
Day of Service
Next month, Residence Life and Housing, in collaboration with the Blue Hen Leadership Program, will host the seventh annual MLK Day of Service to honor Dr. King’s legacy.
The activity is scheduled on Saturday, Feb. 24, after the spring semester has started to give all UD students the opportunity to serve and honor Dr. King. Students will be able to sign up beginning Feb. 12.
—UDaily
Jan 5, 2018 | Uncategorized
Delaware Voice:
Theodore J. Davis, Jr. is a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Delaware.
I have started a research initiative at the University of Delaware called the Delaware Black Community Research Project. The project is dedicated to the development and pursuit of progressive and transformative policies and solutions to racial disparities in the areas of education, employment, and income distribution.
The Delaware Black Community Research Project recently released a report titled, “Racial Disparities in Delaware Remain Deep: Fifty Years After the Kerner Commission Report and the Wilmington Riot.” The Wilmington riot was most notable because the Delaware National Guard patrolled the city of Wilmington for nearly nine months.
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The findings of the report found racial disparities in educational outcomes, employment, income distribution, and housing remains a severe issue in Delaware.
Blacks and whites in Delaware differ in their perceptions of what was the most critical problems facing the state, and racial differences in perceptions of fairness of police practices and the justice system remain deep.
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In 2015, the average black household in Delaware earned 72 cents for every dollar earned by the average white household. Since the 1970s, there has been no significant closure in the poverty gap between blacks and whites in Delaware. In 2015, two out of every ten blacks in Delaware lived in poverty compared to only one in ten whites.
Let’s not get this wrong — there has been a decline in the overall percentage of black families in Delaware living in poverty, but the drop in black families living in poverty was matched by a decrease in the rate of white families living in poverty.
In 2015, the percentage of black children living in poverty was 22.3 percent greater than white children living in poverty. Nearly one-third of black children in Delaware lived in poverty, compared to only one-tenth of white children.
Educationally, the high school graduation gap between blacks and whites in Delaware has closed significantly since the 1970s. However, during the same period, the college graduation gap between blacks and whites has increased.
The difference in the college graduation rates is significant because today’s economy increasingly requires some level of post-secondary education experience for meaningful employment opportunities.
In 2015, the unemployment rate for blacks between the ages of 16 and 24 was nearly double that of whites. Blacks’ unemployment rate in Delaware was around 7 percent, compared to 4 percent for whites. Homeownership is one of the primary measures of wealth in America today. In Delaware, roughly 80 percent of whites own their homes, compared to only 51 percent of blacks.
Sections of Wilmington have evolved into a classic example of the “formation of racial ghettos” mentioned in the Kerner Commission Report. It showed the quality of life and standards of living for Blacks in Wilmington’s inner city (racial ghettos) has gotten worse since the riots of 1968.
Metaphorically speaking, the report concluded that when it comes to what the most important problems facing Delaware, blacks, and whites are in the same ballpark, just different parts of the field.
Among blacks in Delaware, employment, wages and public safety were among the most critical problems identified. For whites, perceptions of the most important facing the state tend to be less concentrated than for blacks.
Whether real or perceived, blacks still consider the police departments throughout the state to be a threat to ethnic and racial minorities.
Ironically, the report concluded that it appears the blacks in Delaware are dividing into two communities: one relatively affluent and the other trapped in disadvantaged social and economic enclaves.
The report concluded that short of business and community leaders, elected officials, and policy decision-makers taking broad-minded actions to reduce racial disparities in education, employment, labor market opportunities and income inequality, racial inequality will remain and negatively impact the economy and future development of the state.
As DBCRP evolves, it plans to partner with groups and organizations to produce research aimed at reducing racial disparities in Delaware.
Theodore J. Davis, Jr. is a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Delaware.
— delawareonline, The News Journal
