Thursday, September 13, 2012

Booming at the Capitol

Once upon a time, the Sonic Boom used to line up on the south steps of the State Capitol every year and tell the world "We are the Urban University of Mississippi and Jackson is our town!" 

Aaahhhh, if we could just do it again...!

Down in the Delta Girl at Forest Hill High

My recruit/former student/menetee Kimberly Warfield of South Delta High School is the new principal at Forest Hill High School in South Jackson, Mississippi. 

A little girl growing up in the Mississippi Delta surrounded by cotton fields,shotgun houses, trailer homes, and knee-deep in abject poverty can only dream about heading a school whose mascot was once "The Rebels." 

That is where Jackson State University comes in...transforming dreams into goals, Challenging Minds, Changing Lives. 

This Down in the Delta girl says "Choose Jackson State...I did!"

A true friend indeed

I didn't exactly recruit Amanda Stewart but her folks were looking for the campus and I not only gave them directions but helped them get parked, get admitted and eventually enrolled!

Later, I taught her twice in history, visited her Chicago home, made friends with her lawyer relative in St. Louis, and have been a family friend every since. 

Now that she is gainfully employed in North Carolina, I am her mentor/confidant. That's Jackson State for you, providing long-lasting friendships among students, students and faculty, and students and alumni. 

That's why we are One JSU, Challenging Minds and Changing Lives. I can just hear her saying to any and everyone "Choose Jackson State...I did!"

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

JSU Magazine is now online or in your mailbox

The Jacksonian - Fall 2012issuu.comAlumni and campus magazine of Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss.

http://issuu.com/jmgcook/docs/fall2012_mag

Jackson State says "You can stay home and still get a degree!"



JSU’s first online degree program enrollment reaches 300 students




jacksonstate.wordpress.com

The College of Education and Human Development launched the first online degree program at Jackson State University in 2009 as a collaborative with Education Online Services Corporation.
http://jacksonstate.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/jsus-first-online-degree-program-enrollment-reaches-300-students/

Friday, August 17, 2012

My recruit

My recruit Ashley Nicole White (JSU 2006-10) of Marks Palmer High School earned her masters degree in Health management at Jackson State University on August 3, 2012 and will formally receive her diploma Friday December 7, 2012.
Public Health Dr. Mario Azevedo has issued an APB for her to come back and work on her doctorate! He awaits her return!
 JSU Dean of


 This is yet another example of how JSU will seek and find students committed to excellence! Miss White was valedictorian of her high school class, graduated from JSU with honors in 2010 and with a near 4.0 for the masters.


 Now, that JSU has Challenged her Mind and Changed her Life, the Dean wants her to tell the world "Choose Jackson State, I did!?"

Match made in heaven

In a match made in heaven: Shelita Burns (JSU 2002-2007) became Mrs. Dexter Hall in Jackson Saturday, July 21. The statuesque former Jackson State University Lady Tigers basketball star and SWAC MVP was an ideal student, a role model par excellence, who assuredly will also excel as a wife and perhaps mother. Mr. Hall is a forthright fellow in his own right who is just what the doctor ordered for Shelita. They are as we want to say " a perfect couple." A recent Facebook pos
t in this space alluded to her Shelita stopping by the JSU campus to implore Summer Developmental Program students to first prepare themselves intellectually, socially, and spiritually and then seek a lifetime marriage partner. Such is the perspective of a young woman with a storied basketball resume', a masters degree, a career, and now united in holy matrimony with her soul mate. JSU has done it again: Challenged Minds and Changed Lives! All together now: "Choose Jackson State, I did!
Willie Jackson (JSU 2010-14) of Vicksburg is a rising junior Civil Engineering Major at Jackson State University. This summer, he moved from his parents home in the Bluff City to live with his grandfather for three weeks in Jackson so he could volunteer as a math tutor for 84 students enrolled in the JSU Summer Developmental Program. He gets a ride with me to campus at 7:00 a.m. and remains until 5:00 and sometimes 6:00 p.m. tutoring those who need help in math. His explanati
on? "I love math and I love helping people." He reluctantly accepts a small food allowance for his labors but otherwise indeed volunteers without any apparent hidden agenda. He just helps others. Such benevolence from a young black man is seldom known or at least publicized. His grandfather and I enrolled at JSU about the same time back in the 1960s. His parents live and work in Vicksburg. Somewhere down the line, family values were instilled that manifest themselves in this young man. He is an unselfish oasis in a desert of selfishness. Better yet, he is lending a hand to high school graduates in the nine-week Summer Developmental Program process of qualifying to attend a Mississippi public university (Mostly JSU) this fall. JSU is doing it again, Challenging Minds and Changing Lives!And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'"
(Matthew 25.35-40)

Talking the Talk and Walking the Walk

Pleshette Smith not only Talks the Talk,she Walks the Walk. The die-hard Jackson State University alumna visited with young women enrolled in the JSU Summer Developmental Program and left her number and email address. She said in effect: "If you need me, or if there is anything I can do, just call me." Behind closed doors, she shared the advantages of being lady-like, being responsible, being focused, and of course being scholarly. They needed to hear this from one who's been there, done that, got the T-Shirt. That's the spirit of there being but One (1) Jackson State whether it's students, alumni , faculty staff, administration, parents, or fans, friends or supporters.

Students Who Attend Class

Students Who Attend Class Tend To Pass T-shirts produced first $1,050.21 for JSUNAA Hilliard L. Lackey Scholarship Fund this spring. New shirts go on sale Thursday, August 16, 2012. Other campuses will also carry these shirts this fall. K-12 schools are being contacted as well. Something great is in the making! Stay tuned....

Teaching College Freshmen


Teaching practices, both in high school and college, frequently help create disengaged students. High school teachers often rely too heavily on memorization and require little rigorous academic discipline all the while developing a personal relationship with the students. College freshmen expect that same supportive personal relationship with the college professor. The supportive relationship in high school between the student and the teacher is probably especially strong with the better students; thus, the better students may be especially vulnerable in the shift to the university with larger classes and less personal attention from the professor. In addition, in high school material is usually covered in class, requiring little outside reading, and testing is more frequent and lacking in demands for critical thinking. Consequently, students enter college with little understanding of what is needed, even though they think they will have to study harder when they are in college: they end up trying to do more of what they did in high school. They have not developed the reading (generally being able to learn material from class presentation rather than reading the text) and analytic skills that are demanded of them in the university.
Bette LaSere Erickson and Diane Weltner Strommer's Teaching College Freshmen. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1991, pp. 3-23.

JSU alumnus Troy Catchings gives advice to students...



During the summer of 2011, I was handed an opinion piece written that ran in this paper for a number of years at the beginning of that school year. It was writt
en by the late Elizabeth J. Smith, a retired educator. Local Clarksdale Municipal School District administrator Lynda Downing almost begged.........