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Guest speaker Hill Harper,
the current actor on the hit CBS show “CSI: NY” is also an
accomplished author including published books:
Letters to a Young Brother
and Letters to a Young Sister. Harper was also
awarded two NAACP Image Awards
for Outstanding Literary Work by a Debut Author and
Outstanding Literary Work for Youth/Teens. Harper graduated
magna cum laude from Brown
University, and cum laude from Harvard, where he
earned advanced degrees – a master’s in public
administration from the Kennedy School of Government and
law degree.
Harper opened his speech with a brief DVD presentation that
highlighted his film and television career, as he walked
around and interacted with the students throughout his
speech. He began with an explanation of how to make dreams
into a plan. “All of us have goals that start in some place.
How are we actually going from this room, on this cold
Saturday to our goals? Most don’t know how and have no idea,
because they grew up in the lotto culture. We want to win
the lotto, but don’t have an approach on how to make that a
success.”
He kept returning to a theme from his first book, F.E.A.R.
which stands for false evidence appearing real. “There are
road blocks to achieving dreams. The road blocks I am
talking about are F.E.A.R. that is what fear is. We
are bombarded with fear and it is due to my business. In the
last 10-15 years, my business, the entertainment business,
has done more to convince you that unless you have a certain
jacket or car – that you are not accepted.”
After the morning session with Harper, concurrent student
and parent sessions were hosted in separate rooms to enforce
the theme, “25 years later: Rekindling the Commitment to
Education.”
During the student session, panel members: Harper, Lionel
Brock, Attorney Philip Carlisle, Patrice McClellan, Ph.D.,
LaToya Pitts and Christina Spears sought to motivate
students to make plans to become more active in the
community and take charge of their future.
Students were encouraged to visualize their life through
different exercises, learn about the importance of giving
back, and defining what empowerment meant.
The parent and educator session focused on how to help
parents and educators motivate students to set goals,
develop their academic skills and to make plans that will
prepare them for the leadership roles of tomorrow.
During their session, parents and educators were provided
with tools for guiding and mentoring students and shared
methods of helping their students achieve goals. Parents
were encouraged to help their students to become pro-active
members of their communities. This panel was led by Marie
Bush, Ph.D., Kathy Gregory, Deborah Carlisle, and Khadija
Ahmed.
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