As a member institution within The Saint Louis Regional Consortium of Higher Education Initiatives Supporting Black Male Success, the Saint Louis University Cross Cultural Center and African American Males Scholars Program is pleased to host the 3rd Annual Black Male of Excellence Leadership Virtual Conference on February 6, 2021, 11 a.m. 鈥� 4:30 p.m.
We understand budgets have been significantly strained and impacted by the challenges of COVID-19. Due to this, we have decided to make the conference free for attendees this year. Please register yourself and your students using the registration link below. We will send the link to the conference via your registration during the week of the conference.
The conference is open to all area Black male college students and high school juniors and seniors, as well as those who support and advise them. The deadline to register is January 31, 2021.
For more information, please contact Dr. Richard Marks, richard.marks@slu.edu or Jonathan Hunn, jhunn@lindenwood.edu.
Conference Theme
This year's conference theme is "A Message to our Kings: Kings Don鈥檛 Lead Alone." Members of the panel who will lead the charge of discussion about the success, challenges and strategies on how to navigate higher education as a Black male student include:
Mike Jones, Ph.D.
Washington University at Saint Louis
Turan Mullins
Maryville University
Larry Morris
Webster University
James Williams
Boys Hope Girls Hope
2020 Black Male Excellence Leadership Conference
The 2020 conference theme was "HuSTLe and Motivate." Past conference session topics presented included:
- 鈥淲hose Man is This?鈥�: Explorations of Masculinity through Black Christian Perspectives
- Black Boys Shine: Discoursing Identity Formation via Spencer鈥檚 PVSEST
- Empowering Black Male Academic Achievement, The Need and Purpose
- Why do I want to go to college? Fill in the Blank
- Working through Adverse Childhood Experiences
- The Envy of the World: On Being a Black Man in America
- Maximizing your Financial Aid
- I am my Brothers Keeper
- Network=Net worth, What鈥檚 Next?
- Navigating the Graduate Journey
- Challenges Affecting Mental Wellbeing for Black Male Students
- HuSTLE and Motivate: Leading through the Hustle
- The Village Healing and Writing Circle
- Black Men Count: Vote and Be Counted
- Lessons from the Other Side: Lived lessons from my internship experience
- Make America Great Again: The Role that Racial Microaggressions have on the Mental Health of African American Males
Consortium and Conference Background
The Regional Consortium of Higher Education Initiatives Supporting Black Male Success formed in April 2017 as a bi-state network of the Saint Louis area college and universities. Institutions represented include Fontbonne University, Harris-Stowe State University, Lindenwood University, Maryville University, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Saint Louis Community College, Saint Louis University, University of Missouri- Saint Louis, Washington University in Saint Louis and Webster University. The Consortium is a community of practice that builds its members鈥� capacity to educate and graduate Black male students through radical and strategic collaboration, resource land data sharing and program alignment.
This initiative was created for the following two purposes:
- To advance the educational, professional, and social achievement of college-age Black men in the Saint Louis region
- To increase Saint Louis based colleges' and universities鈥� capacity to educate and graduate Black male students.
Since its inception in April of 2017, the Consortium has built the foundation for supporting Black males by advocating for establishing a Black male initiative and support systems on each member campus. Consortium leadership strives to map out a more extensive Black male engagement process via the annual Black male leadership conference, first hosted in February 2019 at Lindenwood University. This first conference hosted around 100 participants from the St. Louis regional area. The second annual conference was held in February 2020 at Washington University at Saint Louis, where attendance nearly doubled. After reviewing the participant assessment data, leadership is now committed to building an annual conference for the entire region to continue to encourage and support the Black men enrolling at all of the member institutions.