Black Student Summit

FEATURE PACKAGE

Christian Allen, News 20 at Five

Are you guys ready to get started? YEAH! Alright, that’s more like it.

The Florida A&M Student Government Association held a “State of the Black Student" summit that highlighted the importance of Black Excellence. The summit was hosted by supermodel Melyssa Ford and included an all-star line up of panelists.

My overall experience was good. This was the first time I’ve been around so many intellectual black people. They gave us a lot of information and I was actually excited to here a lot of the information about career paths and even relationships because I think it matters. Especially with society as well,” said FAMU student, Sarah Lee.

Summit panelists ranged from journalists, authors, musicians, actors, doctors and businessmen that could offer insight about the real world. John Legend was one of the most notable speakers and he expressed his viewpoints of the American education system.

“We have what I would call an “education crisis” in America. Particularly, in the poorest communities in America,” Legend said.

Vice President of the Miami HEAT, Eve Wright, gave students important information that would be valuable for those looking to start their own business. While Carmen Ulrich stressed why recent college grads should invest in themselves.

“Paying attention to your money, paying attention to those loans, paying attention to living inside your means; all of those things are investments in you,” said Ulrich.

Many students felt motivated by the topics discussed and acknowledged that diversity is key to any situation.

“I think the summit was good. It was a combination of a lot of different thoughts and people’s ideas, which is always good to have diversity and thought. Like monologue and thought, it kind of creates stagnant activity. So to have people that are sort of going against each other not in an argumentative type of way but more like a iron sharpening iron type of way. It was a really good event and I think that they gave the message that they were trying to get out to the public,” said FAMU graduate student, Dallas Gibson.

“Tonight’s forum discussion was very motivating, I’m very excited and very excited and very grateful that I was able to see something like this because you don’t get to see this many black people have so many encouraging things to say and being the examples that they want us to see,” said FAMU sophomore, Christina Wallace.

Once the summit had come to a conclusion, students had the opportunity to meet with certain panelists for photos and book signings. For News to at Five, Christian Allen reporting.