"Gateway Staff Make Presentation at HBCU Summit"
Regional Meeting of Historically Black Colleges and Universities Held in Maryland
By Belynda Rivers, College Relations & Summer Placements Coordinator, Gateway Institute
March 18, 2005

On March 10, 2005, Greg Johnson and Belynda Rivers of the Gateway Institute central office, along with Wesley Pitts from the Queens Bridge to Medicine Program attended the 8th Annual Regional Meeting of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. This "HBCU Summit"  was held in Ocean City, Maryland, and the theme was "Improving Retention at HBCUs: Redesigning, Retooling and Recommitting." The Summit provided a forum for educators, students, legislators, businesspeople, government agency leaders and parents to address issues of retention of African American students in college and increasing the pool of African American college graduates. The group also worked collectively on developing action plans for the coming year.

This is the second time that Gateway Institute staff have attended the HBCU Summit, however it was the first time that Gateway was invited to be a presenter at this three day event. Another main purpose of the Summit was to celebrate retention programs that work. The Gateway Institute, as a highly successful Pre-College education program conducted a panel discussion highlighting a few of the many attributes that help us to prepare our students academically for college and sustain them through graduation.

While attending the conference, we were enlightened and inspired by such keynote speakers as Dr. Alvin Thornton, Associate Provost at Howard University, Dr. Camille Charles, Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Wil Bryant, Counselor to the Secretary for White House Initiatives on HBCUs and Dr. Jawanza Kunjufu, Lecturer and noted Author of "Black College Students Survival Guide", a title we keep in our central Gateway Library.