Ten Milwaukee-area Students Become Men of Morehouse Through New Milwaukee Scholarship Program

I took this pic of Graves Hall in 2007

This story is great but it would be nice to see this out of all the major urban areas in the nation. Whether Milwaukee, Detroit, NYC, Boston, LA, Memphis, Chicago, etc. Well especially Chicago!

Ten Wisconsin students sat at a table, wearing maroon and white ties last week during “Signing Day ” and put to ink scholarship papers to attend Morehouse College. They are the first group of what school officials say will become a new pipeline of black males from the Milwaukee area to Morehouse.

Funded by Wisconsin and national donors, the young men will attend Morehouse this fall on four-year scholarships totaling more than $800,000. They become the largest-ever group of Wisconsin students to come to Morehouse.

“We’re creating a pathway for student success that runs through our schools and one of the nation’s most renowned institutions of higher education,” said Gregory Thornton, superintendent of Milwaukee Public Schools. “It’s an honor to partner with Morehouse.”

The key:

The scholarship donors – BMO Harris Bank; the Hans Helmerich Foundation; Charles and Cheryl Harvey; the Johnson Controls Foundation; Dale E. Jones; Mr. and Mrs. Ulice Payne; Ildy and Skip Poliner; United Negro College Fund; Wisconsin Energy Foundation; and Scott Voynich – were all on hand for the Signing Day event at Milwaukee’s Rufus King International School. 

I usually think in terms of only scholarships although in this case it seems the Milwaukee Public School were involved with this as much as Morehouse itself.

Wait I missed this part:

The Milwaukee scholarships are part of a pilot program in which Morehouse plans a nationwide push to recruit students from cities with low high-school graduation rates for young black men. 

Alright! It just goes to my idea about Morehouse or other HBCU's future goals should be to provide access to higher education. Just find a niche group who need an extra push, in this case young men.

The currently hidden "Flamingo"

This evening I was walking around downtown Chicago after work and as usual took a meandering path and walked past Federal Plaza this evening and snapped this shot and shared it on instagram & Twitter. Federal Plaza are a series of buildings and a plaza designed by Mies van der Rohe located along Dearborn & Clark between Jackson & Adams.

What you see hiding in that plastic and scaffolding is a sculpture - Flamingo - created by artist Alexander Calder. It's being restored currently and Lee Bey who comments on architecture in Chicago even talks about this piece:

The 30-ton work is now shrouded in a mysterious-looking opaque scaffold box – providing a bit of a visual punch itself. Inside, workers and conservators will spend the next month applying a zinc primer designed to make the sculpture more durable.

Next will come a topcoat of paint which will bring back the work's visual vibrancy and allow the industrial steel beauty to stand up against the elements, according to the complex's owner, the federal General Services Administration.

It's good to see the federal government doing right by one of the the city's most celebrated works of public art. Designed by Alexander Calder, Flamingo was a big deal when it was dedicated – Calder himself came – in 1974. In fact, Calder was a fan of circuses and he led a procession of elephants, 40 hours and calliopes up State Street as part of the dedication activities. Calder also dedicated his mobile, Universe, in the new Sears Tower the same day.

This is how it looked when it was still out in the open hopefully we'll see it look new in the near future!

 BTW, the pic above shows the Dirksen Federal Building. The courthouse where Rod Blagojevich and George Ryan two of Illinois' former governors had been tried and convicted of corruption charges. Those and other corruption cases have been tried there. And outside a huge sculpture, a work of art. Imagine that!

#MorehouseLetter: Morehouse in a downward trajectory?

This letter by Morehouse College alum Imar L. Hutchison addresses the college's board of trustees and the presidential search committee. He wishes for Morehouse to address those issues that are affecting the college and how the school risks irrelevancy!

I find it somewhat troubling that there are Morehouse Men who aren't sure if they want to send their sons to their own alma mater. There are certainly reasons for that, reasons that are explored in this letter. I don't yet have children so it's not necessarily an issue for me. Still, when I do have a son my hope is that he would consider Morehouse although he should have a choice in where he goes to university.

Some of these issues outlined in this letter have been discussed at some level by some friends of mine while we were undergrads. One gent was concerned about where the money is going at Morehouse. Another gent pretty much declared Morehouse a business school. In class years ago, my religion class discussed the issue of homosexuality at the college. Also the issue of rigor had been brought up at a Crown Forum by an esteemed alumni and was met with some boos.

As stated these issues do concern me. Here on this blog, I've explored the issue of whether or not HBCUs should continue to exist. Not sure I've ever provided an answer although my answer would be to say yes. My explanation is to state that HBCUs historically were created to provide Blacks access to higher education during those periods of time where they would have had a very tough time getting admitted to an American university. That mission should still be important although it may transcend ethnicities.

Morehouse is primarily known as the university of Dr. Martin Luther King. He's not the college's only prominent graduate and in the future I would expect that someone will reach his stature! Dr. King was not a business major and it's unfortunate that the college is being referred to as a business school.

Another thing I've explored on this blog was the issues of the political science department. My last year at Morehouse before I graduated saw the fallout from the departures of three professors. I learned for the first time then that the pol. sci. department was the 2nd largest department at the college. I also learned during that period that many of those students had simply moved from the business department to major in political science. It may well underscore the point of this letter that the best and brightest students were steered towards the business department!

OK, so perhaps we have another question to ask about Morehouse. Should the college be a school that helps to nurture leaders in many fields? Not only leaders in the business world but also in other fields and careers such as politics, science, medicine, academia, or even the church?

Mr. Hutchison does mention social justice although that's not a clear concept to me I understand where he's going. Social justice is about character more than anything a concern about other people and their welfare. Nothing says our primary goal is about chasing the almighty dollar. Should the idea of character education be a defining characteristic of Morehouse?

My hope is that the leadership at Morehouse College will grant Mr. Hutchison an audience and hopefully they will take some of his points under consideration. Not only that they seek to implement those changes but also choose the right people to execute them. Time will tell!

Some math humor

I shall help you out with this message because it took me a while to get it myself. The square root of -1 is i a negative integer complex/imaginary number, 2 cubed or 2 to the 3rd is 8, the next symbol is sum, and the final symbol is pi.

Therefore i eight sum pi. I ate some pie...and it was delicious!

Eventually I got the sqaure root of one and then the sum and pi. I just got stuck on 2 cubed, for some reason it didn't occur to me to just plug that in. It would've led me to the obvious conclusion!

Happy father's day everyone! :)

Via The Nerd Code!

A green subway entrance

Over the old Washington/Madison subway entrance staircase. As seen below in March or April this was nothing but dry grass and mud. As of yesterday in the pic above freshly planted with grass.

Conan O'Brien's shoutout to Springfield, Illinois...

[VIDEO] Before I knew it Conan's TBS program came to town and hadn't even bothered to get tickets beforehand. It's alright, my goal is to eventually find my way to Los Angeles so that I can attend a taping in person. Besides that had been my goal since he was still in NYC doing Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

While he is in Chicago until today, I did get a kick out of this segment where he visited Springfield, Illinois. Who says a major TV program who is temporarily in Chicago has to stay in the city. Conan is a certified Abraham Lincoln buff so this makes a lot of sense. Perhaps in the future more TV shows might consider taking a day trip to Springfield, Illinois!

Another thing I got a kick out of, last night's episode showed fan suggestions for sites to place Conan's huge bobble-head statue. He definitely used my suggestion I posted on Twitter!

#cocobobble right next to MJs statue outside of the United Center
— Levois (@levois) June 13, 2012

Unfortunately, I'm disappointed that he didn't even have a video of any fan suggestions for his bobble head statue. But you can see last night's program at this link!

Also here's a shout to that Abe Lincoln impersonator's website @ http://lancepresentsabe.com

Printing press

I haven't really played with the Blogger app available to iPhone users. This picture of a printing press in the Printer's Row neighborhood on Harrison St. near Dearborn provides a good opportunity to play with this app. Although knowing me I'll probably just edit it later.

Also it was posted to my instagram account as well.

Speaking of the L...

[VIDEO] The big news this week in the Chicago Transit Authority is that the Dan Ryan portion or "Red Line South" of the CTA Red Line from approximately Cermak-Chinatown to 95th Street will be shut down for an overhaul for approximately 5 months starting in May 2013. That means CTA will set up express bus routes and passengers may want to consider some other commuting options.

This post will show a video from our local CBS affiliate about why this is necessary and how bad a shape the Dan Ryan line is. Though basically we also learned that just shutting that line down would be cheaper and certainly a bit faster than keeping it open and trying to work around the trains in service. It's expected to be a win in doing it this way.

Time will tell although unfortunately I will be affected. Does anyone have an auto they want to sell?

Schmdit: 120 years ago: Chicago's first 'L'

Roosevelt L stop CTA Green/Orange Lines!

John R. Schmidt's Chicago history blog at Chicago Public Radio gives us a history lesson. On June 6th, 1892 Chicago instituted it's first elevated rail service. A precursor to some of the adventures I often tweet about and usually chronicles of what happens on the train at a certain point during the day.

Anyway it arrived just in time for the 1893 Columbian Exposition to be held on the south side at Jackson Park the line only went from Congress Parkway to 39th Street and was eventually extended to Jackson Park in time for that event.

The funny part of this post:

It took a while for some people to get used to the "L." A teacher at Haven School complained that the noise of the trains made it difficult to conduct class. Others didn’t like the smoke from the coal-burning locomotives. Apartment-dwellers now had to keep their shades down in they wanted any privacy—young women were warned to be careful of roving Peeping Toms.

In 1892 and probably like most rapid transit around the world at that time, the first trains were pulled by steam locomotives although now most rapid transit trains are run by electricity mainly by third rail. Incidentally when it came out that the CTA may rebuild the north side branch of the CTA Red Line they noted all the bridges up there were built with steam locomotives in mind. So there is a benefit although we realize it after the fact now!

Aside from Schmidt's blog I would like to share with you some pages from Chicago-L.org which features items related to Chicago's L system!

• Green Line: SouthSide Elevated - the stretch from roughly Roosevelt to about 39th street was the original 1892 route and was rehabbed last in 1996.
• The Original "L" Companies: The South Side Elevated - this was especially noted on the homepage of Chicago-L.org as they pay homage to the 120th anniversary of L service in Chicago!

"Death of the Valiant" - The Fate of Earth's First Starship

[VIDEO] The voyages of the starship Valiant formed the basis of the second Star Trek the original series (TOS) pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Basically at the beginning of this episode Mr. Spock was pulling data from the Valiant's recorder that had been floating around in space for decades after its destruction.

In this video we get a little bit more with regards to the Valiant. We see them leave the galaxy as USS Enterprise did in the second pilot and we see them attempt to recover from such an action. Then we see the ship's ultimate destruction due to one crew member's response to his newly discovered extra-sensory perception.

I've always though this would be a story that should be produced one day. We explore it in this video although it's just an exercise in CGI animation. The rest of the story which we didn't get from the pilot episode came from a Star Trek novel The Valiant which featured another Captain of a starship named Enterprise - Jean-Luc Picard.

Oh yeah this posting is in homage to the time I could watch not only a replay of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), but also an episode of the original Star Trek on Sunday nights. In fact on Saturdays you can watch a first-run episode of TNG and then at 10:30 Sunday nights you can watch a repeat of that episode. Then at 11:30 PM episodes of TOS. All of this on Chicago's WPWR channel 50!