Philander Smith College

Dr. Walter M. Kimbrough President of Philander Smith College

www.philander.edu

Greetings!

The past year was truly exciting year, with the historic presidential election—which fielded the most diverse pool of outstanding candidates ever--ending victoriously for the candidate first considered most unlikely to become the next president of the United States. People from all walks of life came together to elect Barack Obama, and on the night of November 4, 2008, people around the world rejoiced when he was announced as the president-elect. On Facebook, the social media phenomenon, our students posted a video of their celebration while watching the returns in the Kendall Center.

During the campaign, candidate Obama successfully employed the mantra, “Yes we can.” At rallies across the country, literally tens of thousands of people chanted this phrase of affirmation and motivation. In the end, the people did succeed in electing him. And now, the hard work begins.

At Philander Smith College, we really didn’t have that kind of catchy mantra over the past four years; we simply started making it happen. There was not a lot of hoopla or media attention, but the substantive changes made by this community of students, staff, faculty, administrators, board members and alumni is truly one of the most inspiring stories in all of higher education—especially in this era where HBCUs continue to struggle to survive.

Here at Philander, our campus GPA has increased every semester. The freshman GPA is up 18 percent, and average ACT up 17 percent, making our freshman class comparable to Black students enrolled at the top public universities in this state. Our number of honors students has increased 164 percent and applications to the college are up 160 percent in the past two years alone. Additionally, our retention rate has increased 33 percent, and our graduation rate 75 percent—making us one of the top tier schools in all of Arkansas for retaining and graduating African American students.

What’s more, despite the recession, our endowment is up 43 percent and we have broken alumni giving records twice in three full years. We have gone from ten audit findings down to one. We introduced a social justice initiative with a new logo and tagline, “Think Justice.” Finally, Bless the Mic remains the best college or university lecture series in the nation. Simply stated: Yes we did.

Now, watch us do even more.

Bless The Mic: A Hip-Hop President’s Lecture Series

Bless The Mic is a contemporary spin on the traditional President’s Lecture Series. Held on hundreds of campuses across the country, these lectures are typically a way to stimulate the intellectual discourse on the campus. The problem with most of them, however, is they tend to become stale, stuffy and dry. Even the traditional college lecture, where the “sage on the stage” reads from their notes, can lose today’s student.

Bless The Mic is different. It seeks to provide a mix of speakers who will either have a tremendous ability to communicate with the hip-hop generation (broadly defined as Black youth culture including college students and young professionals, but today includes a more diverse group of young people), or who have studied areas that are of importance to this group. Even the title of this lecture series is an attempt to reach this generation, as the phrase “Bless the Mic” is used to acknowledge rappers with exceptional lyrical skills. Consequently, these lectures have drawn a broad cross-section of people—parents, high school and college teachers, lawmakers, clergy, activists, generally speaking, anyone interested in understanding contemporary issues.

Since its inception, Bless The Mic has consistently garnered rave reviews for the stimulating, thought provoking content delivered by its impressive array of diverse speakers including Dr. Cornel West, Ann Coulter, Rev. Al Sharpton, Ambassador Andrew Young, Juan Williams, James Carville, Roland Martin, Kirk Franklin and more.

Coming up in March 2009: Susan L. Taylor editor emerita of Essence magazine. To learn more about this dynamic lecture series, visit www.philander.edu/lecture-series.

Miss Philander Smith College

President Kimbrough and his wife Adria pose with Lauren Allen, Miss PSC 2008-2009.

Sophomore Lauren M. Allen was crowned Miss Philander Smith College for the 2008-2009 academic year in an elaborate coronation ceremony held on campus in September.  A native of Kansas City, Mo., Lauren is a presidential scholar with a double major in English and political science.