By Yasmeen Akbar
Clark Atlanta University is instrumental when it comes to preparing its students for life post-graduation. Before students leave the university, you can ensure that students are equipped with the tools to properly compete in the workforce and to become profound leaders, panelists suggested at Clark Atlanta’s Founders’ Day Convocation.
“Clark educates us in such a way that we can compete on the world’s stage,” Dr. Roosevelt Allen Jr. said during the virtual event on Thursday.
The panel was composed of three speakers, two of whom graduated from Clark Atlanta University and the other from Clark College.
As a member of the CAU graduating class of 2000, Dr. Stephanie R. Spaulding is an associate professor in women and ethnic studies at the University of Colorado. She is also a social justice advocate, author, poet and ordained minister.
Representing the health industry and a graduate from Clark College, class of 1983, Dr. Roosevelt Allen Jr. is a distinguished urologist, an avid supporter of the athletics program at Clark Atlanta as well as a minister.
Daniel Blackman, a member of the 2002 graduating class at Clark Atlanta whose expertise lies within the political field. He has worked with the Congressional Black Caucus and has also worked with the Obama Administration’s environmental initiatives.
Panelists placed heavy emphasis on the betterment of African-Americans in this day and age. While Spaulding and Allen focus more on how Clark Atlanta equipped them with the tools necessary to tackle the professional world, Blackman takes this time to advocate the importance of political and community involvement.
“It's not enough for us to have degrees from institutions like Clark Atlanta University if we are not able to take those degrees and compete at the highest levels,” Blackman stated. “We have graduated some of the best and brightest minds out of Clark Atlanta University and we need to make sure that transcends,” Blackman said as he suggested that viewers must utilize their degrees for more powerful positions to aid in the uplift and development of the black community.
Dr. Spaulding recalled her time during her graduate program at Purdue University. She explained how her first few weeks there she felt “out of place” and “disheartened” but one day in literature class during a discussion, she discovered how limited her colleague’s knowledge of various writers was simply because all they knew were white writers with some exceptions. “Not only could I speak the language of predominantly white writers, but I knew more because I had a breath and a depth around literature and experience and culture that they had not had access to,” Spaulding stated.
“Clark Atlanta has prepared you to be in that room and to be a competitor,” Spaulding stated.
Dr. Allen shared a story similar to Spaulding’s when he went to Rochester and many of those around him, who had attended ivy leagues, was shocked by what he knew; he credits this to Clark Atlanta and its staff, “the professors at Clark were so hard on me,” Allen stated while Spaulding laughed in agreeance.
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