Lone Star College to host higher ed summit
Lone Star College is hosting its annual African American and Hispanic Institute for Males, a free conference that will invite more than 40 teenage boys of African-American and Hispanic descent to engage in four days of discussions and activities centering on higher education.
The institute, to take place June 17-20 in the Student Conference Center on the LSC-Kingwood campus, is being hosted by the Men’s Center at Lone Star, a resource to men on campus that offers general counseling, academic support, financial planning and assistance, leadership and development, and mentoring.
Alfred Dorsey, the director of the Men’s Center, said the institute, known as “AAIM and HIM” for short, was designed to help students understand why college is a good option for them, especially when evidence shows that many black and brown male students are “not choosing higher education or college as a first choice, or as a choice at all.”
“Sometimes I feel like these young men are not understanding the full aspect of opportunities, in terms of what’s next after graduating from high school,” Dorsey said. “We’re trying to let them know there are other options that are more beneficial if you focus on college for two to four years. It gives them another option.”
Day One of the institute will focus on education, with sessions that emphasize the importance of education and opportunities at Lone Star.
The second day, students will tour the University of Houston-Downtown and Texas Southern University, where they will get a presentation from admissions and other departments on campus.
Dorsey said the third day will focus on empowerment, with life skills-related sessions on dining and etiquette, interviewing, leadership and culture, and understanding the criminal justice system, with lessons on how to comply when being approached by an officer.
On the fourth day, students will conclude the experience with a full-on graduation with caps and gowns, engraved diplomas and swag, including backpacks with school supplies for the upcoming school year.
Kingwood student Jeffery Davis III, 17, participated in the program in 2017 with his younger brother and said it was a refreshing experience as a person of color growing up in a majority white neighborhood.
“It was really interesting to see people who look like us,” he said, and to learn that though many people grew up in different places, many had similar situations.
Though Davis intends to go into the service industry as a firefighter or an EMT, he said he still took away valuable lessons on how to carry himself, specifically as a minority. Davis said mentors advised students to always keep their wits about them and not let their emotions govern their decisions.
The program is the brainchild of Darrin Rankin, Lone Star College’s vice president of student success, who launched the institute around two decades ago at Dillard University in New Orleans and later brought it to Clark University, Dorsey said. LSC-Kingwood has implemented the program every year since 2014 — save last year due to the significant damage the Kingwood campus sustained after Hurricane Harvey.
Applications for the institute are available online. The deadline is May 24.