Student Engagement

By Robert A. Scott, President, Adelphi University

April 1, 2011

Dear Friends: I sent the following note to the board of trustees following two days of meetings,
part of which focused on student involvement in formal campus activities. I thought you would
find this of interest.
________________________________________
Dear Trustees:

Monday evening I returned to the University Center for the reception and lecture by Margaret
Atwood. It was well attended. The audience was enthusiastic. I didn’t stay for the entire lecture
as it had been a long day and I had a briefcase to go through. As I left the ballroom, I saw a
group of students in one of the meeting rooms. I peeked in and was invited to join a group of
about eighteen young African-American women and listened as they discussed relations with
men and reviewed pictures on a power point of male/female relationships over time. I was
fascinated by one student making a connection between a 1940s newspaper advertisement
showing a white couple in a kitchen to a contemporary hip-hop verse. When I got up to leave,
they invited me to meet with them again.

As I exited to the right, I noticed in the next room a group of young African-American men
seated around a table. One of them saw me at the door and waved me in. I sat enthralled as I
listened to them discuss plans for next week to tutor at Hempstead Junior High School, hold
sessions on how to be a real man and that real men cry. They invited me to join them again. I
later learned that both groups would like to visit with me.

When I turned to exit through the back door, I was motioned by Maggie Yoon to come look at
another room where a group of about two dozen students were making Origami pins with young
Japanese children. Again, I was fascinated by the degree of student engagement. Here were
about seventy students in total, who could have been at the lecture, but instead were undertaking
individual initiative toward a greater goal. I went home quite satisfied.
Thank you again for your devotion to a greater Adelphi.
______________________________________________________________
P.S.: I learned the next day that the young women are part of a newly formed group called
FOCUS (Females of Culture United for Success) who are becoming increasingly active on
campus. The group of young men is called MOCA (Men of Color Alliance) and they are active
both on and off-campus, working with younger students who face many of the trials these more
mature college students have faced.

The third activity is related to a Japanese Relief Fundraising Event to be held next week, where
students will be creating Origami Crane pins for purchase, with proceeds to benefit the Japanese
Red Cross Society by way of the American Red Cross.

What initiative!

For further information, please contact:

Todd Wilson
Strategic Communications Director 
p – 516.237.8634
e – twilson@adelphi.edu