The 2020 JDOAAI Roland E. Latham Oratory Contest Program

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DEAN ROLAND EARL LATHAM ORATORY COMPETITION Tuesday, October 27, 2020

Dean Roland E. Latham Overview Named in honor of long-time African American administrator and the first Director of Minority Affairs, from 1967 to 1983, Roland Earle Latham was committed to instilling the quest for academic excellence in the students he served. This Oratory Competition encourages intellectual inquiry, critical thinking, oral presentation and producing sound arguments.

Dean Latham was a strong individual and very demanding of his students. He came to Northeastern at a time when the institution was a fledgling operation. During his near 20 years, he was instrumental in helping Northeastern mature from 25 Black students, to 1200; as well as develop strength in minority and multicultural affairs.

As a special assistance to the Vice President, Dean Latham helped develop Northeastern's African American Institute, which has received national recognition for its programs. Dean Latham was also instrumental in establishing a scholarship fund for Black students named in honor of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. All of this was made possible by Dean Latham's strength as an educational leader.

Latham became Dean of Multicultural Student Affairs in 1983. His job included responsibilities for activities of international students, the program for English as a second language, and Minority Student affairs. Also, in Spring Semester of ‘83, the 1st Dean Roland E. Latham Oratory Competition took place in celebration of his transition to Dean and as a tribute to a true pioneer for students of color at Northeastern University.

JDOAAI Overview Brief History – The John D. O’Bryant African-American Institute (JDOAAI), “The Institute”, as a part of student affairs, has positioned itself within Northeastern to play a significant role in supporting African American students and providing services and programs to increase opportunities for academic success, civic engagement and social inspiration. The Institute has come a long way since its early days amongst the turbulent 1960s. Its history has been one of determination and progress. Born out of the idea to create an oversight committee for Northeastern’s Black community, the African-American Institute was established in 1968 to develop and implement a long-range plan for a genuine, effective and permanent Black presence at Northeastern University. On October 5, 1992, the African-American Institute was renamed the John D. O’Bryant African-American Institute in honor of Vice President John D. O’Bryant, an untiring advocate for educational opportunity and excellence at Northeastern University and throughout the city of Boston.

Vision – To be a global leader in affording African American, African Diaspora, multi-ethnic and multi-racial students the space, reassurance and inspiration necessary to achieve the highest levels of excellence in higher education Mission – Pursue with unwavering focus to – · Create an experience for African American students that nurtures, supports and encourages excellence in higher education success · Participate in the recruitment and retention of the most talented and accomplished African American students and students of color · Invest in African American student development, experiences, and global oriented success · Strategically positioning the Institute to study, understand and contribute to the body of literature about what is required to turn undeveloped potential into realized achievement and excellence for African American students · Be a global leader in defining and exhibiting cultural competence, multi-racial engagement and multi-ethnic community building and global citizenship Our mission will continue to be carried out through exciting programs, services and cultural activities that include: · Ujima Global Leaders Program – A leaders program for diverse complex world · Legacy Mentoring and Leadership Program – A student support collaborative · Counseling/Tutoring Services – Student personal and academic support · Reggie Lewis Technology Center – Student computer lab · MLK Graduate Fellowship – Graduate student support · Study Resources and Special Collections – State of the art study space, computers, and African American special collections Our signature cultural programs and activities include the Kwanzaa celebration, our Unity Gospel Choir Concerts, the MLK Celebration, the Oratory Competition, Black History Quiz Bowl, Unity Awards Banquet, and the Baccalaureate ceremony.

PROGRAM Welcome - Dr. Richard O'Bryant, PhD Oratory Hostess Welcome - Miss Gabriela Tavares Black National Anthem - Mr. Damian Lee Competition Rules & People's Choice - Miss Gabriela Tavares ORATORY COMPETITON Freshman Category Freshman People's Choice - Miss Gabriela Tavares Upperclassman Category Upperclassman People's Choice - Miss Gabriela Tavares Graduate Category Graduate People's Choice - Miss Gabriela Tavares Presentation of Awards Dr. Richard O'Bryant PhD, & Miss Gabriela Tavares

JUDGES

Sara Rivera Sara Rivera is the Assistant Director at the Latinx Student Cultural Center and has been working at Northeastern since 1997.During that time Sara has impacted the lives of hundreds of students in achieving success in the classroom, the community and professionally. Sara is the chair of the LaCLA scholarship committee and currently is the faculty advisor for LASO and the Kaliente dance group. Known to many students and colleagues as Sarita, a name only used at NU, she has been involved with various campus partners in different ways, including but not limited to, The African-American Institute, LGBTQA+ Resource Center, ResLife, and NU Crossing just to name a few. As a first-generation Latina, Sara earned her Master’s degree in 2013, and hopes her journey can inspire members of her family and NU students to pursue an advanced degree.

Marsha White Marsha White is a proud Triple Husky and former Martin Luther King, Jr. Fellow. Since 2005, she has been an active member of the Northeastern community as student, administrator, and educator. She currently serves as the Assistant Director of Online and Hybrid Programs at the School of Law and is a part-time lecturer for an interdisciplinary foundations course at the College of Professional Studies. Originally from the island of Dominica, Mrs. White takes pride in her role as the advisor to the Caribbean Student Organization and John D. O’Bryant African American Institute Unity Gospel Ensemble. She is currently pursuing her doctorate in education and aims at focusing on the retention and persistence of Afro-Caribbean students in graduate degree programs. She lives by the scriptural motto, “to whom much is given, much is required” and loves to encourage and motivate students of the African diaspora to reach their highest potential.

JUDGES

Dr. Richard Harris

Dean Harris holds degrees in Industrial Engineering; Applied Educational Psychology; and is a STEM Education Doctoral Candidate (ABD) Richard spent 15+ years in industry as an engineer and manager for the following two companies prior to joining Northeastern: (1) M/A-COM, Inc., a Tyco Electronics Company, in Massachusetts, and (2) Mitsubishi Chemical America, Inc. in Virginia.

Richard joined Northeastern University in 2003. He holds the following positions in the College of Engineering (CoE): Assistant Dean Academic Scholarship, Mentoring and Outreach; Director of NUPRIME (Northeastern University Program In Multicultural Engineering); Co-Chair for the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee. Richard has contributed to and overseen several grants including the NSF Northeast Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program (NE-LSAMP); Co-PI of NSF S-STEM partnership between several HBCUs, Regional Community Colleges and Northeastern University; and is a member of the core leadership team for the Howard Hughes Medical/Mentoring Institute Inclusive Excellence Project within the College of Science.

Richard is a member and official chapter advisor to both the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) and National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE). He is the University representative of the National GEM Consortium; American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) member; American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE) member; National Association of Multicultural Engineering Program Advocates (NAMEPA) member; and is a Fellow of the Massachusetts Academy of Sciences.

Some recent recognitions include: 2020 College of Engineering Dean’s Meritorious Award; 2019 NSBE Minority Program Director of the Year; 2019 NSBE Boston Professional STEM Advocate Award; 2016 Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. Carter G. Woodson Bowties & Pearls Higher Education Award; 2015 National GEM Consortium University Representative of the Year; 2014 Raytheon, Patriots, Boys & Girls Clubs of America Science of Sports Science Fair Award.

Richard volunteers for many activities and organizations. He currently serves as a member of the community advisory board member (CAB) for the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Community Health Improvement (CCHI); President of the Concerned Black Men of Massachusetts, Inc.; member of the Board for the Massachusetts Pre-Engineering Program, Inc. (MassPEP, Inc); and Advocate for the Empower Yourself Youth-based program.

ORATORY HOSTESS

Gabriella Tavares Gabriela was born and raised in Lawrence, MA to a family of immigrants who came to the United States from Dominican Republic over 30 years ago. Throughout her life she had to overcome many adversities such as being the child of an incarcerated parent who was then deported, surviving sexual assault as a child, growing up surrounded by poverty in a single parent household, and losing a friend to gun and gang violence. While life hasn’t always been easy, these life experiences taught her to grow rapidly. She learned valuable lessons and found a way to turn her scars into stars. This led her to competing for the title Miss Massachusetts multiple times which she then eventually won becoming the first black person to hold the title! This honor took her to the Miss America stage where she won Preliminary Interview/Onstage Question, the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) award, People’s Choice, and placed as Fourth Runner-Up and Top Five at Miss America.

Being an Afro-Latina, Gabriela knew that regardless of her circumstances, she was strong enough to get through anything. She knew she had the grit and the intelligence to make her way through any situation.

Currently, she is a candidate for her masters in business administration with a concentration in corporate renewal from Northeastern University. She currently works as the Director of Customer Success at Cherry Blossom Intimates, an award-winning first of its kind intimate and medical facility boutique in Washington DC, a space where women with breast cancer can shop with dignity. Not shy to social justice, she also serves as the Vice President of Equal Pay Group, an organization determined to close the wage gap between men and women, but especially women of color. She hopes to have an impactful career challenging companies and individuals to become more diverse and inclusive in business.

ORATORY PARTICIPANTS Freshman

Jenia Browne – Major: Environmental Studies and International Affairs

Noah Colbert – Major: Mathematics

Marco Tortolani – Major: Data Science

ORATORY PARTICIPANTS Upperclassmen

Soumia Litim – Major: Business Administration

Laetitia Pierre-Louis – Major: Behavioral Neuroscience

Ebelechiyem Okafor – Major: Cellular Molecular Biology, with a Writing Minor

ORATORY PARTICIPANTS Graduate

Nwabisi Chikwendu – Major: Public Health

Jordan Clark – Major: Urban & Regional Policy

Romaric Belmier Mbakop – Major: Engineering Management

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ORATORY PARTI IPANTS

Graduate

Aline Mweze – Major: Public Health

Kelli Perkins – Major: Higher Education Administration

Shania Shehata – Major: Public Health

37th Annual Roland E. Latham Oratory Questions 1. As of Aug. 12, 2020, NPR’s Camilla Domonoske discovered that, “Since George Floyds murder, 59 Confederate symbols have been removed which is a significant increase over past years. In an updated report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, just 16 Confederate symbols were removed or renamed in all of 2019, but nearly 1,800 Confederate symbols remain on public land and 725 of those symbols are monuments." Do you agree or disagree with the removal of these symbols? If you agree with the removal, how do you propose to remove the near 1,800 left? Or, if you disagree, how will we ensure their preservation?

2.

Momentum is building for the case for reparations for African Americans. For example, “The Asheville City Council voted 7-0 on a resolution to repair centuries of racial prejudice by unanimously voting to provide reparations, formally apologized to its Black residents for the city's role in slavery, discriminatory housing practices, and other racist policies throughout its history,” reports ABC News’ Ivan Pereira. In addition, “The U.S. Conference of Mayors released a letter backing a Democratic plan, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, to form a reparations commission to come up with a payment to 41 million black people for slavery,” states Paul Bedard, a Washington Secrets Columnist. Where do you stand on reparations for the descendants of African Americans? How would you administer funding to the community? If you are opposed to reparations, explain your reasoning.

3. In early April, “Dr. Anthony Fauci took time on a national stage during a White House coronavirus press briefing to draw attention into how African Americans death rates and intensive-care intubations were higher because of a greater prevalence of underlying medical conditions, like diabetes, hypertension, obesity & asthma," Jake Lahut of Business Insider accounts. Furthermore, inequities in the social determinants of health, such as poverty and healthcare access, affecting [people of color] are interrelated and influence a wide range of health and quality-of-life outcomes and risks. To achieve health equity, barriers must be removed so that everyone has a fair opportunity to be as healthy as possible. What are the barriers to healthcare access blocking Black citizens from equal care and how will they be broken down?

4. Chris Quintana of USA Today asks, “The 2019 graduates of Morehouse had a gift from billionaire philanthropist Robert F. Smith, to pay their collective federal student loans off; but what about those of us without a billionaire? The national student loan debt stands at about $1.6 trillion, according to data from the Federal Reserve System. Research shows Black students generally have higher amounts of debts as well as a higher default rate.” Do you think the government should forgive this collective student debt or should the borrower continue to be responsible for the educational loan? Please explain.

37th Annual Roland E. Latham Oratory Questions 5.

“Black journalists are calling for a new media landscape. After being hit hard by Covid-19 media layoffs, leading the reporting on racial disparities among coronavirus cases, enduring abuse from both police and publications while covering the George Floyd uprisings, and suffering the seemingly constant discrimination of white newsrooms. Black journalists are tired. To be a working Black journalist is to live in a perpetual state of exhaustion. The data here is by now familiar: A 2018 survey from the Pew Research Center found that 77 percent of newsroom employees are white and just 7 percent are Black,” Char Adams of The New Republic tells us. How do we forge a new journalistic environment to protect and support Black reporters, as well as encourage youth of color to pursue the craft to balance representation?

6.

Mayor Walsh has declared racism a public health crisis in Boston. In an effort to combat it, Walsh moved less than 3% of the police department budget to other services. “At $414 million per year, BPD is second only to Boston Public Schools in overall funding, dwarfing all other departments. As our [WBUR’s] analysis shows, that’s almost three times the size of the Cabinet of Health and Human Services and four times the size of the Public Health Commission. That’s worrying at the best of times, but during a global pandemic, it’s outrageous,” says WBUR’s Carol Rose. Did Mayor Walsh divert too much, too little or just the right amount of funding from the BPD to affect the public health crisis of racism in Boston? Please explain your reasoning and what you would do differently, if anything.

7. After the assassination of Dr. King, Black students presented Northeastern University President Asa Knowles, a list of 13 Demands, on May 3, 1968. The aims of the 13 Demands centered upon equal access to university resources, increased enrollment of Black students and faculty, financial support and creating afro-centric programs and curricula. The first of the thirteen Demands is stated thusly: "We demand new academic scholarships for Black students by September of 1968; and by 1971, we demand that at least 10 percent of the incoming freshman class be Black."

Now, it is 2020 and the Black student population at NU is 3.3%, down from 2019’s 3.4%. NU is indeed a PWI, a primarily white institution with its official centennial history, Tradition and Innovation: Reflections on Northeastern University's first century, declaring “The University would strive to attain a 10% minority enrollment by 1971, a goal that was achieved by 1971 …the target date.” The truth is Black enrollment has only reached 10% once in Northeastern University’s entire history; the year the 13 Demands held the institution accountable as the centennial history says, in 1971. Yet, in reality, Black enrollment hit 10% only that one year, in 1971. Indeed, never before, nor since, has Black enrollment even ever hit 9%... How can NU be held accountable for 48 years of a broken word and be moved to action to hit 10% Black enrollment?

37th Annual Roland E. Latham Oratory Questions 8.

“Transgender women of color led the uprising at the Stonewall Inn 51 years ago Sunday, but they were never put at the center of the movement they helped start: one whose very shorthand, “the gay rights movement,” erases them. Although active in the Black Lives Matter movement from the beginning, they have not been prioritized there, either. At no point have Black trans people shared fully in the gains of racial justice or LGBTQ activism, despite suffering disproportionately from the racism, homophobia and transphobia these movements exist to combat. But now, as the two movements are pulled together by extraordinary circumstances — the protests sparked by the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery; the killings of two Black trans women, Dominique Fells and Riah Milton, shortly after a Black trans man, Tony McDade, was killed by police; a pandemic that has disproportionately affected people of color; an economic crisis that has disproportionately affected trans people; and a Supreme Court decision protecting gay and trans people from employment discrimination;” How do we uplift, elevate and help our Black trans sisters achieve whole-hearted acceptance, clear visibility and above all, equality in the Black lives Matter Movement?

9.

Just this July, “The Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a sweeping police reform and accountability bill that seeks to certify all law enforcement officers in the state and curb the use of force tactics by police. The bill, representing the House's attempt at addressing calls to counter systemic racism and force changes within law enforcement. Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Association of Massachusetts, said the bill "does not reflect the fierce urgency that deadly police violence against Black people demands. Instead, it reflects the depth of entrenched opposition to necessary police reform.” However, the legislation does ban the use of facial technology, chokeholds, and regulates the use of tear gas and rubber bullets unless officers have no other options to protect public safety.” Did Massachusetts’ Police Reform Bill go far enough to truly affect positive change at the Boston Police Department or did the bill go too far in restricting the actions and privileges of the BPD? Please explain.

10.

Not long after the murder of George Floyd, “Two petitions on Change.org have drawn more than three million signatures as of June 15, 2020. The first, petitioning Congress to 'Make the KKK illegal' and the second chance to 'Change KKK status into Terrorist Organization.'” Unfortunately, “The United States faces a growing terrorism problem that will likely worsen over the next year. Based on a Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) data set of terrorist incidents, the most significant threat likely comes from white supremacists…” With public opinion moving toward disbanding the Ku Klux Klan, known as a domestic extremist organization, do you agree that the group should be labeled a domestic terrorist organization or keep its designation as it is? Please explain.