Thursday, May 27, 2010

HU students return from Cannes Film Festival

Hampton University students return from Cannes Film Festival


Two HU students share their experiences at the Cannes Film Festival in France with the Daily Press. Kacie Willis and Jennifer Ibe returned this week after participating in the highly competitive Creative Minds in Cannes program.

Monday, May 17, 2010

HU Midshipman Selected as Female Officer on Navy Sub

HU Midshipman Selected as Female Officer on Navy Sub

Midshipman Lisa Brodsky

Lisa Brodsky, a recent Hampton University graduate and Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) midshipman, has been named as one of only 19 female officers in the nation to be selected as the first females to serve aboard a U.S. Navy submarine. She will be commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Navy on May 17.

Brodsky graduated May 9 magna cum laude from HU with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics. Following her commissioning, Brodsky will attend Nuclear Power School in Charleston, S.C., before being assigned aboard her first submarine.

On April 29, the Department of the Navy announced a policy change that allows women to serve on submarines. Brodsky joins eight other NROTC graduates from other universities and 11 U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen as the first U.S. Navy female officers to be selected to serve as a submarine crew member. All the midshipmen selected had to go through an extensive interview process with the director of naval nuclear propulsion and the top Navy officer in the submarine force in Washington, D.C., Adm. Kirkland Donald.

“We are extremely proud of Midshipman Brodsky’s recent accomplishment, being accepted as part of the first female class in the submarine community,” said Capt. Mike Barea, the Hampton Roads NROTC commanding officer and HU professor of naval science. “There are many uncertainties that lay ahead but there's steadfastness, a willingness to serve within our Naval ROTC student body as our nation’s next generation of defenders.”

The Hampton Roads Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps is one of the largest officer training battalions in the nation, consisting of over 250 sailors, Marines, and midshipmen. It is comprised of a three school consortium that includes HU, Old Dominion University and Norfolk State University. Founded in July 1982, HU’s NROTC program, known as the “Charlie Company,” this year totaled 41 midshipmen.

The NROTC program, overseen by NSTC at Naval Station Great Lakes, Ill., was established to develop midshipmen mentally, morally and physically and to imbue them with the highest ideals of duty, loyalty and Navy core values. NROTC graduates become naval officers who possess a basic professional background, are motivated toward careers in the naval service and have a potential for future development in mind and character so as to assume the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government.

Lisa Brodsky (fifth from left) stands with other female NROTC midshipmen selected to serve aboard submarines.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Obama Tells HU Grads to be Role Models and Mentors

















Click to enlarge.

Obama Tells HU Grads to be Role Models and Mentors

Hampton University students often joke that HU President William R. Harvey owns a weather machine. Well if he does, the dial was set on perfect this past Sunday. Sunny skies and mild temperatures welcomed U.S. President Barack Obama as the keynote speaker of the Hampton University 140th Annual Commencement.

Excitement has been building among the graduates, faculty, staff, parents and the community about the Commencement since Obama was announced as the speaker in February. Attendees lined up on Marshall Avenue in front of the Armstrong Stadium long before the sun rose. Once the gates were opened proud parents, grandparents, other relatives and well-wishers hurried in to get to their seats.

The processional started promptly at 9 a.m. and the graduates and faculty, proudly marched in. Media representatives from all over the country snapped photos and shot video of the 1,072 graduates.
Harvey welcomed Obama and compared the similarities between Obama and HU.

“There are many parallels between your life and Hampton University. For example, you were born in Hawaii, and so was our founder General Samuel Chapman Armstrong,” Harvey said. “You attended and graduated from the Punahou School, and so did General Armstrong. You graduated from Harvard University and so did I. You believe in service, and Hampton University was founded on the concept of service to the community, the nation, and the world, and we instill this concept in our students through our many service programs and projects.”

In his address, Obama did indeed challenge the HU Class of 2010 to serve the community by being good mentors and role models.
“All of us have a responsibility, as Americans, to change this; to offer every child in this country an education that will make them competitive in our knowledge economy,” he said. “But all of you have a separate responsibility, as well. To be role models for your brothers and sisters. To be mentors in your communities. And, when the time comes, to pass that sense of an education’s value down to your children.”

Obama also spoke about the history and significance of historically black colleges and universities. “We meet here today, as graduating classes have met for generations, not far from where it all began, near that old oak tree off Emancipation Drive. I know my University 101.”

He went on to say that the founders of HU and the other HBCUs understood that while discrimination would persist long into the future, “with the right education, those barriers might be overcome and our God-given potential might be fulfilled. They recognized, as Frederick Douglass once put it, that ‘education…means emancipation.’”

Obama challenged the graduates to be persistent like Americans before them who wanted a better life for their children and grandchildren.

“That is what has made us who we are. A dream of brighter days ahead, a faith in things unseen, a belief that here, in this country, we’re the authors of our own destinies. And it now falls to you, the Class of 2010, to write the next great chapter in America’s story; to meet the tests of your own time; and to take up the ongoing work of fulfilling our founding promise.”

HU valedictorian and student commencement speaker Delaiah Cobler told the students to accept Obama’s challenge to be the change we wish to see. Cobler, a history major from Richmond, Va., also told her classmates to rise above the challenges and to “shake the haters off.”

Obama also became an honorary Hamptonian on May 9, 2010. Harvey and Chairman of the Hampton University Board of Trustees, Frank Fountain presented him with the honorary degree Doctor of Laws.

The President also took a little bit of HU back with him to Washington D.C. Harvey presented him with a sapling of the Emancipation Oak, an athletic jacket with President Obama and Hampton University written on it and gifts for his family.

Only 2 Days Left: Vote for HU!

Only 2 Days Left to Vote for HU in the Home Depot Retool Your School Contest!


There are only two days left to vote for Hampton University in the Home Depot Retool Your School Contest. HU is currently in 4th place, behind Elizabeth City State University, Florida A&M University and Tuskegee University. Make your vote count!

The program is designed to provide improvements to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) nationwide. One $50,000 grant recipient and ten $10,000 grant recipients will be selected by votes submitted by the public and an advisory board of community influencers.