Oakwood Competes Again for Home Depot® Grant

In 2013, officials from Home Depot present Oakwood  University with winning grant.

From February 17 to April 14, supporters can visit www.retoolyourschool.com to vote for Oakwood University's campus improvement project. "We need everyone's support to help Oakwood win this grant," said Kisha Norris, executive director for advancement and development for Oakwood. Oakwood is only Seventh-day Adventist university in the competition. 

The winning school of the Campus Pride Grant will be selected by a combination of the applicant's social media activity and voting score. The three applicants with the highest votes and most social media activity, as determined by the sponsor during the voting period, will be awarded with the Campus Pride Grants. 

Oakwood University had the most votes last year! Let's do it again. Go to www.retoolyourschool.com and vote as often as possible - and from all of your personal computers and devices. You can also Tweet about the competition using #OakwoodTHDRYS

And be sure to tell your family and friends to do the same.

This past Sunday, February 16, Oakwood University students competed in and won the trials for the Honda Campus All-Star Challenge in St. Louis, Mo. This automatically qualifies OU for the National Championship Tournament to be held in Calif. in April. Oakwood was a semi-finalist in 2013 and is a two-time national champion.  

Honda Campus All-Star Challenge is a knowledge game of quick recall for America's Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Now in its 25th year, more than $7 million dollars in grants have been awarded by Honda to participating HBCUs and nearly 100,000 students in 22 states have participated.

Members of OU's Honda All-Star Challenge team are Kenesha Bennett, Parris Boles, Greg Edouard, Jennifer Miller, and Antoine Southern. Coach Rennae Elliott, Ph.D., chairperson of the communication department, said "The students represented God and Oakwood well, and they played well." Those that helped the team practice include Sanna-Gay Hird, Sesly Huerfano, and Jhanel Tam.

More than $300,000 is at stake this year, with the champion HBCU earning a $50,000 grant. Oakwood will be one of 48 teams competing for the top prize. 

Oakwood senior, Murray Evans Joiner III, won an essay competition that commemorated Martin Luther King Jr.'s service to the American people. Joiner was honored for his essay on January 22 at the Sparkman Center in Huntsville. The event was sponsored by Team Redstone and the Huntsville Center and hosted by the Army Materiel Command.

The competition material was to focus on the work of Dr. King. Joiner's essay was originally for his Business Law class. His professor instructed the class to write about Martin Luther King Jr., and then told them that she would be submitting the essays to the competition. Joiner wrote about Dr. King's role in the continued struggle for emancipation from institutionalized racism.

In his essay, Joiner described Dr. King's work as one that helped ensure that all races could achieve the same level of education. Joiner aspires to become an orthopedic spine surgeon.

Oakwood University student Jefferson Lindor is currently being featured in the Black History issue of American Way, a publication by American Airlines. Lindor is a junior management information systems major and he hopes to achieve a successful career in corporate America. "I've always dreamed of being a top leader in a Fortune 500 company, who is very inspiring to my employees. People will respect me because of my integrity, my determination and my work ethic."

It is no surprise that Lindor loves attending Oakwood. "What I like about Oakwood is the spiritual atmosphere and the support of the faculty and staff to the students. I enjoy being at a school that is centered on Christ. It is very important to me, because having a successful career and being wealthy is vain if God is not the main focus in my life."

Click here to read the article in which Lindor tells about how a United Negro College Fund scholarship helped him to continue his academic journey at Oakwood. 

Oakwood University is providing useful information for people planning to attend or attending college - sponsoring two days of events to celebrate Financial Aid Awareness Weekend.

On Saturday, February 22, at 6:30 p.m., Oakwood will host its first Scholarship/Funding Summit - "Paying for College" - in the McKee Business & Technology Complex. The target audience for this event includes high school juniors and seniors. However, all Huntsville area students and families, currently enrolled college students and persons interested in attending college are welcomed.

Presenters include representatives from the United Negro College Fund, Oakwood University, and other scholarship granting entities. These organizations will provide current and future students with information and best practices to help families locate, apply for, and receive valuable college scholarships, as well as maximize financial aid and tuition discounts.

On Sunday, February 23, from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. in the McKee Business & Technology Complex, the Oakwood University Office of Financial Aid will host a community outreach program called "College Goal Sunday." On this day, the University is offering free onsite assistance with completion of income taxes and the FAFSA application. Financial aid counselors will also be available to answer questions about financing college in general, as well as directing students to various financial aid resources.

Kimberly Pearson, '05, associate chaplain in the Office of Spiritual Life, wrote a story in the January/February 2014 edition of Message Magazine titled Scattered Seeds. Her story focuses on how as a child, she was impressed with her mother's gardening skills and she likened this learning experience to the parable of the sower and the seeds. Pearson said "And now I have a deeper respect for gardens, and God the sower, who scatters seeds and patiently waits for the results in our lives."

Last week, Patti Conwell, '85, an assistant professor in the communication department, was featured in the online edition of the Huntsville Times. Conwell's book topic, that deals with being a single Christian female, was showcased in the column "Spiritual Journeys." To read the entire article, visit here.

Alumni Notes

One could not miss the spunk of Porsche Vanderhorst, '04, in the recent MSEA Dispatch, the official publication of the Maryland State Education Association. In the article, Vanderhorst, a reading/writing focus teacher and seventh grade English teacher at Benjamin Banneker Middle School in Burtonsville, Md., spoke about her "must-haves" in the classroom. "I value my Anna Knight Hall experience as it truly made a difference in my educational outlook," said Vanderhorst. 

Note: If you are an OU alum and would like to share news about yourself, please send them to us.

Pollard's Places

This past Tuesday, I attended a breakfast meeting with other leaders of the Huntsville/Madison County territory. The guest speaker of the breakfast was U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions. His keynote address focused on key issues facing the Huntsville/Madison County community. 

- Dr. Leslie N. Pollard

Oakwood's own, Monica Spencer (right), placed third in the National Miss UNCF competition this past Saturday. Spencer believes in community service and she recently raised awareness on homelessness and hunger by collecting food items for the Downtown Rescue Mission of Huntsville. She is pictured here with the 2014 Miss UNCF. Photo by Kisha Norris.