A summit aimed at black men is returning to Ohio University after an eight-year hiatus.
The seventh Black Man Think Tank will feature speakers and networking opportunities intended to inspire black men.
Event organizers from the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity hope the summit will help spark a resurgence in black male involvement at OU, fraternity president Greg Turner said.
Anyone is welcome to attend the event, he said.
The summit will begin with a breakfast and will feature a keynote address by Rex Crawley, a graduate of OU and the founder of the original event years ago.
Turner decided to bring the event back after looking through fraternity archives and finding records of the events in years past, he said.
Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland recently noted the lack of black men on Ohio college campuses, Turner said.
In October 2007, Strickland held a forum to address this problem, and launched a preliminary project to build a leadership center for black men, according to an Oct. 20 Columbus Dispatch article.
Sixty-four percent of black men graduated from high school in Ohio in 2005, compared with 88 percent of white men, according to the article, while Ohio's six-year graduation rate for black men earning a bachelor's degree is 31 percent, compared with 67 percent among white students.
Events such as the summit could give black men on campus a sense of community and a drive to achieve, Turner said.
Our goal is to come together as a demographic on this campus that can achieve and accomplish
he said. - 17
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Kappa Alpha Psi hopes to spark black male involvement on campus
