117th Annual Howard University Charter Day Convocation

Do you. Do. You. Do. And welcome to Howard University's opening convocation dedication for the new business

school building. I'm just vexed along with Libby often and we come to you live from the backstage auditorium. You're on Howard University. It's a whole lot going on backstage. Well as out on a. Date. We've seen. Everyone is really excited especially when this nomination. Is. Going to be a special dedication. Is happening. This. I'm in. Business. These days. And they tell you Jesse a lot of people have really been. Going to. Yes we have it every year. This is number one. Seventy. And before we get on the way we'll tell you a little bit about what complication means actually convocation literally means academic Assembly coming together for a meeting with those quite appropriate and respected. Respecting Dr. James Cheek president of the university shortly. And Dan Sesno is going on. Our main speaker at the convocation speaker is Dr. flexi Kinkade's his real tour

and a business woman the flexi ticket was awarded the Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard University in 1936. And immediately following her graduation. She began full time employment with the John R. Pinkard insurance company and real estate agency. She served with the corporation through the years in many capacities and to highly significant milestone she agrees where preselection the secretary of the corporation in 1942 and in 1958 her election as president and chairman of the board a position that she continues to hold. You know Jesse Jackson I think it is very well known in the Washington community and being a real estate expert. Actually she has done had many accomplishments. And she will be the keynote speaker today at convocation. Very shortly we're going to be going to the festivities and we're going to open with the prayer of course by Dr. Evans Crawford who is the longtime dean of Howard University Chapel. Of following Dr. Crawford we'll have readings by Dr. Geraldine Woods who is the chairman of the Howard University board of trustees voted to be a very interesting program.

They're probably hearing of the great music in the background which is of course the Howard University Choir. Tuning up. Getting ready. For complication. Following music by the Howard University Choir. In addition to Duke Ellington School of the arts concert choir I think we're going to have a male section today. That's going to be directed by Mr. Edward Jackson. Of course we'll go onto the address by Dan to make it. So it's going to be a really interesting program. As we said this is number 117 This is the official opening of the university. Basically it's the Welcome back. They do it every year. And. Actually a lot of folks are really anxious this year just because of the. Dedication and opening of the new school. This massive structure. Georgia Avenue we happened to pass by YEAH RIGHT. Us there. Right. And for you I always just like to let them know that this is being. Cast on channel 30 to 30. That's right. Different. Listeners whether it's on channel 30

to. The Howard University band is playing in the background. Getting ready for the prophet to take center stage. In open convocation with a prayer. He'll be coming your way very shortly. Poly ladies and gentlemen Howard University welcomes you to this convocation which formally inaugurated the one hundred and 17th academic year of this institution I also invite and welcome you to the second phase of this event which will be the dedication of the School of Business and public administration building. I am pleased that you have joined us and I thank you for dissipation

in the celebration of this occasion. We request that you remain standing for the invocation to be given by Dr Evans the prophet dean of the chapel following the prayer greetings will be given by Dr Geraldine P. Woods chairman of the Board of Trustees after which proceeding will follow as indicated in the program. That was Dr. James Cheek president of Howard University. Us pray. And through these moments of shared silence gracious God come with all your enriching power. What we have of heart and soul and mind and strength. We are thankful but we need your presence to keep

them vital in faith. We need your presence especially in all beginnings. Lest we miss the freshness we need to follow through in ways appropriate to your created love. We know too well the staleness that can overcome our moods and our spirits. So come with all your renewing power as we face another academic year. We remember those who have labored and who have shared that commitment and skill with us but who now sleep in death from that education we will take inspiration to continue to pursue excellence and make our pursuits partake of that rejoicing by which our forebears kept the steady beats that brought us to these places of opportunity and hope and made the remembrance of such rejoicing renew us as we face the semesters I

had teach us as a university. How to be one and yet many. Lest we lose our wholeness in the vicious partialities and dichotomies that can so easily be set us and in such oneness torture us personally and collectively that with hand and heart and then whatever the language is our various disciplines speak we all may have a spirit of understanding that helps us overcome the barriers in our way. Thus may we continue to face life's rising sun seeking to be not merely successful but faithful to your a higher cause and your eternal benediction. Amen. That was Dr. Evans Crauford dean of the chapel here at Howard University and very shortly we're going to be going to the official readings by Dr. Geraldine Pitman who's the chairman of the board of

trustees. That's the key. Dr. Pinchot Fitzhugh members of the Howard Community distinguished and dear friends. On behalf. Of the board of trustees. I'm pleased to welcome you to this convocation marking the formal opening of Howard University is one hundred seventeen academic year as chairman I would like to express my deep appreciation to the members of the Board of Trustees administrators. Faculty. Staff. Students alumni. Friends for all your support we must continue to work together as we all know that there isn't a public investment more important than

the one we make in the minds skill and discipline of our students whether we are talking about a strong economy strong system of justice we cannot achieve either without a strong educational system our very future and international economic competition depend among others upon. First rate scientists engineers managers and negotiators Howard University educators all for the benefit of our society nationally educational systems involved some 60 million Americans including students at the elementary high school and post-secondary levels as well as faculty staff and administrators.

While nearly one of every four Americans is employed and employed in one way or another in education related pursuits we ask how we are fortunate indeed as very unique in terms of our special mission our blend of tradition and the brand of enthusiasm we affectionately refer to as the power spirit they have that spirit is not easy to define but its effects may be seen not only on the athletic field and in the growing support by alumni but also in the daily commitment we make to further the progress begun by others and making this a great university. Today Howard

University is bigger and stronger than it is than it has ever been in its history and we intend to keep it that way. The spirit is a spirit of dedication and also of cooperation and teamwork. We often have combined our efforts to surmount challenges by example by rallying to the rescue of a sister institution addressing internal problems in some way. How what spirit is that which evokes our best collective efforts for the sake of the wider community as well as for the sake of this institution from which many of us have received so much. The beginning of an academic year like the beginning of a calendar year seems an appropriate

time to set go. In the case of universities big goal of excellence is overriding and therefore provides a common thread to all our particular endeavors. This is indeed an historic occasion because today we dedicate a magnificent new building a business school a school that is projecting great growth. It should be noted that the convocation speaker is a distinguished business woman. Dr. flaks Lippincott who is also a graduate. Thank you so very much. Dr. Pinchot for sharing this memorable occasion with us. I would like to extend a special welcome to the newcomers to the Howard University community and to assure them that their contributions

to our very own quest. Of excellence eagerly awaited. Thanks to our visitors and I'd like you to know how happy we are to have you share this occasion with us and that we appreciate your interest in how it University Let us look forward to continued success. And many accomplishments during this New Year. Thank you. That was Dr. James. Woods. Chairman. Of the Board of Trustees Howard University. OK living next we're going to have a music selection. The Triumph we're seeing from up to 30. We're going to have to see into the Howard University Choir assisted by the instrumental ensemble and Oregon and Duke Ellington School of the arts concert choir and I believe I call them the Howard band. Was the correct instrumental ensemble and organ and that's directed by

Mr. EPPER Jackson conductor Dr. Jay Weldon Norris right. And that will be coming up. Immediately. Yes. Moments. It. In. In. It. It's in this. Case. As.

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And. Those are the kind of things. First the news of course recognize it as a crime scene from you but you said the. Is to the Howard University Choir was assisted by the instrumental ensemble organ. At Duke Ellington School Concert Choir. The male section with. Mr. Edward Jackson directing and Dr. J Weldon is conducting. And very shortly Chessie. Dr. Frank you think it will be taking the podium for the keynote address Dr. flaxseed Panget obviously is a very prominent businesswomen in the Washington community and we are waiting to take the podium for the keynote address. You're listening to WAGA on Radio ninety six point three. Libby lost and Jesse facts. While waiting for that I think we might tell you something about the School of Business and public administration

building the new building for the School of Business and public administration represents the attainment of a goal that misspeaks out university's commitment to excellence in education particularly in management and administration. The new facility provides for the first time a place where both graduate and undergraduate business students will be taught under one roof and the inclusion of City Hall Dr pink in honor and pleasure. Resent to you the distinguished doctor flaccid pink get to receive your home the honorary degree of Doctor of humane letters Flack's say Madison Panka get it. And remarkably successful business woman. Outstanding civic and political leader. Champion of education for all but people

and humanitarian. You have been a tremendous and many sided force for good in the city of Washington. Your achievements in an extremely competitive field and your brilliant leadership in so many areas of community and national life have served to make you one of the city's most highly esteemed citizens born to distinguished parents in St. Louis. You came to the District of Columbia your early enough to attend the famed Dunbar high school receiving your bachelor's degree and doing

post-graduate work at what you studied subsequently at Terrel law school the American University School of Business Administration and Catholic University. You began your professional career as a 14 year old working part time in your father's business at the college. You became a full time employee starting as a typist and advancing through the ranks to office manager a member of the board of directors to Secretary of the corporation to Secretary Treasurer and finally the president and chairman of the board.

The positions you currently hold a magnanimous person you have shared your time your influences and your talents and then to live with the many various agencies and boards. You have a mass an impressive number of first as a woman and as a black American you are a professional affiliations have included membership on the Washington board of relatives the National Real Estate Brokers Association the Metropolitan Washington Board of Trade and the D.C. Chamber of Commerce. Your concern with the young has placed you on the board of directors of family and child services incorporated

the District of Columbia juvenile delinquency and crime board and has made you a founder of the baker's dozen youth center. Your deep rooted concern for Excellence in Education resulted in your being made a trustee of the District of Columbia Board of Higher Education co-chairman of the United Negro College Fund and president of the District of Columbia U.S. citizens for better education. Your involvement with the district's health problems place you on the U-19 give us fund for it and maybe you Chamoun of the D.C. Health. And. Welfare Council. Your lifelong interest in civil rights earns you membership on the

NAACP board of directors and the coach chairmanship of the local Mobilization Committee for a historic march on Washington in August of 1963. Your political commitments culminated in your selection as Democratic National Committee woman for DC and with the membership on the national Democratic Party's Commission on Civil Rights. Very very few if any of us citizens can match your record that a dedicated volunteer participation in national and local affairs your well deserved wants and honors are naturally Legion and like your record the volunteer service can only be given token recognition on this occasion.

Over the years into Aliah you have received the DC commission of citizens merit award for public service the Howard University distinguished alumni award for outstanding service in the fields of business and community participation. The United States Army Distinguished Service Medal and the outstanding contribution in community Fales award given by the Grand Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority. In 1976 the Washington board of relatives names you real letter of the year the first woman to be so honored. In 1981 the great Board of Trade presented you

with its most prestigious but ambiguously titled Man Of The Year award. I began the first woman to be so reckless not like Madison can't get because of your preeminence in the field of business because of a style of leadership you have played in local affairs in the civil rights movement. And in national politics. And because of the humanitarian concerns which for so many years. Has motivated your every effort. How would university take a parental pride in honoring you. It's Dr. therefore by virtue of the

authority vested in me by the Board of Trustees of Howard University. I do now confer upon you the degree doctor of humane letters Norris scows and admit you to all the rights and privileges pertaining back to I direct that you'd be invested with the hood appropriate to this high degree and I present you with this diploma and this citation. Thank you. That's. The first that was Howard University president saying. And. Coming up momentarily we're going to be addressed by Dr. Glass. Thank you. Madam Chairman. Members of the board of trustees

administrative faculty and student colleagues alumni. Of Howard University distinguished guests ladies and gentlemen I present to you that the never. Be a dress for the occasion of the inauguration of our one hundred and seventeen year Dr. Flack's say Madison. Dr. Keith Boffa would Dr. Carson fichu platform guess members of the Board of Trustees of Howard University.

Members of the administrative staff members of the faculty members of the support staff and most important members of the student body of Howard University. Ladies and gentlemen I am honored to be with you today. I am honored by the recognition and by the occasion. I am especially honored that my own alma mater Howard University has chosen me to speak at the opening convocation marking the one hundred and seventeenth year of its existence. It's been more years than I care to admit since that warm June day when I received my degree from President Mordicai and Johnson. Well a lot of things have changed over the years since then

many things have happened. But there is one thing that hasn't changed. I'm just excited today as I was the day I received my degree. I was fairly young when I entered Howard. Younger than most of my classmates I lived with my family in Washington just a few blocks from here on the street. My parents were very progressive people for their time and both had careers but they were also very strict and they took a dim view of the social life on the Hill. They were heavily invested with the work ethic. And my father solved the problem of temptation on the Hill by hiring me as a part time clerk in his struggling new business on New

Jersey Avenue. That way he could keep track of me on a time clock. As well as by personal observation. You're probably thinking that this is a medium to a discourse on how. Tough things were for them compared to how easy they are for today's students. Quite the opposite in many ways. Life was a lot easier for us than it is for today's undergraduates. The same is true for teaching then versus teaching. Now today's professors have a much tougher job simply because they're so much more to teach. Consider this more than 80 percent of the scientists ever born since the dawn of civilization are alive today. And that's just one aspect of the information explosion. One little story that I

find particularly appealing constrains what I consider the humility of the true academic. Not all the academics that I have known a humble. Anyway. A few years ago. A publisher invited to 60 of the leading scientists of our time to write articles about what they didn't know but wanted to. The result. It was a book of 450 pages in length 450 pages called the Encyclopedia of ignorance and detailing what these great minds who didn't know when you get right down to it. It's one of the great paradoxes of the information explosion that it takes a great deal of education just to know what you don't know. I should also add that it takes education plus experience to be able to discern

what's important and valuable among all this. And this is certainly the most priceless ingredient of education today. For they are all too many of us who think it's more important to know all the Michael Jackson songs than it is to live by. And strive for the dream of Martin Luther King Jr.. So I'm not going to talk about how you set things off with the students because they are not easy. Let me reminisce with you a little about those early days when I was attending how I am working with my father's business and talking about the time between the two world wars the time of the Great Depression of the 30s as a registered Democrat. And one of the. And a one time National Committee woman I'm tempted to mention that that same great depression came after 12 years of Republican presidents.

Back then. There were two kinds of careers open to blacks the professions and domestic service. There were jobs in civil service of course but they were mainly menial with few promotions in industry job opportunities for blacks were virtually zero except for Philip Randolph brotherhood of sleeping car porters the trade and craft unions were virtually all anyone. In business. You could forget white collar jobs for blacks just didn't exist. My father knew all this of course but it was 1932 at the depths of the Great Depression and he had a wife and six children to support and he was unemployed. So he did something that you might say was completely irrational

given the times and the conditions given the economy given the going rate of all businesses given the skyrocketing suicide rate almost once successful business executives and investors jumping off skyscrapers given almost 99 and 99 100 percent Jarman's of failure. He started his own business and with great pride he gave it his own. John R. Pincus incorporated. Speaking of jumping off skyscrapers Dick Gregory once observed that the reason the suicide rate is so low among blacks is that it's very difficult to kill oneself. Jumping out of a basement window. I mention the basement because. My father's office was a single

basement room but for us it was a great deal more for my father had his greens two years later he was straight. He stated his dream in his typically thoughtful and slightly formal language. I decided to organize a business which would draw upon my experience in real estate and insurance to that and that I could support my family and build a business that would give employment to others as it had opportunities to serve more and more people. Let me emphasize one key phrases in what he said. Build the business which would give employment to others as it had opportunities to serve more and more people even back then. My father saw his fledgling one room business as sort of seed at a place where blacks could get

employment and training at a time when most stores were closed to them and that some would move on to start businesses of their own. In a seeding and receding process which would repeat itself many times over. If you are familiar with our business you will know that my father's dreams have been fulfilled many times over the business which once began in that basement office with one employee and no customers. Fifty two years ago now occupies its own modern two storey building and employs more than 30 persons clients number in the thousands. Property Management Department services residential rental commercial and investment units numbering in the thousands. Real estate sales department handles transactions ranging from single family homes to estates and diplomatic property as well as

industrial and multi-unit apartment building. Our insurance department is a full service policy writing agency representing major online firms like Aetna and the Hartford. And organ and recognized for having one of the lowest clean ratios in the country. My father's dream has come true particularly in respect to the process of reseeding. Over the years we've given employment to many people many people on the way up on the way up and into the mainstream. In many instances we have given them scholarships to send them back to school for their specialized training required in our field. Many of our employees have moved on to professional careers or to businesses of their own. Some even as direct competitors. The process continues and it does not diminish us in the least.

It is good for our people it is good for our community and it is good for each one of us in business to know that we are giving back something of what we have received. I should say too that over these many years we have had an extremely long and most pleasant business relationship with Howard University one that continues to this day. For Howard was one of my father's first major clients and indeed it was this very fact that enabled him to negotiate contracts with major stock companies insurance companies at a time when there were no black agencies representing them anywhere in the world let alone the United States. I can assure you we have never forgotten our roots. By now you've probably done some mental arithmetic and decided that my own business to spanned

something like 50 years. You're pretty close and I'm going to draw on those 50 plus years to share a few thoughts with you. First let's start with the black is beautiful theme. You don't hear it as much today as you used to. It was an important statement at the time. An important reminder that there was no need for blacks to emulate white standards of beauty. It was and is also a statement of racial pride. A reaction to the centuries of second class citizenship. Another way of saying we are not inferior we are not second class citizens. We are as good as you are. Whoever you are coming as it did at the time of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and the billions of dollars earmarked for eradicating poverty and wiping out the centuries old inequities between whites and blacks the black is

beautiful slogan unfortunately made a lot of people think getting into the mainstream was going to be easy Dick Gregory used to tell the story of a young black man who filed a complaint with his local office claiming he'd been turned down for a job because he was black he was called in by the board and asked what type of job he applied for because you did your job as a radio announcer. He proclaimed proud. And. Dick Gregory was telling it like it is. There were a lot of people who assumed mistakenly that simply being black was an automatic ticket into the mainstream into the Great Society.

Well of course it's not anymore than being white. It's an automatic ticket into anything any more significant than the Tuesday afternoon club in Phil Harris's fame due to the awful small but awful period in the Great Society created opportunities to get into the mainstream that hadn't existed before. But many of us missed those opportunities in the early days of our business during the days of rigid segregation and virtually 100 percent inequality. We learned one important lesson. When you're black and white man's world when you are a black business competing with white businesses you are disadvantaged not only by blatant prejudice but also lack of resources lack of credit lack of a viable market and your competitors have an abundance of almost everything you do not. I said almost

the one thing you have in as great or great abundance is the need to excel. In short you've got to be not just just good but better than your competitors. This is not fair but it's true because you see there was another side to this issue. Black businesses have been around a long time. They've been tolerated as long as they were second rate and we're willing to accept only crumbs. The problems began to arise as any black business person will do. When we and others like us decided to compete as businesses rather than being content to sit in the wings eating the crumbs as quote black businesses. In short in business or in your personal life there are two stages to improving the main stream. First you must make a conscious

decision to enter it. It will not come and sweep you up. In all the discussion about de facto segregation. We pay far too little attention to people who voluntarily segregate themselves from the mainstream by waiting for it to come and embrace them. Second you must also make a conscientious decision to sell. We are sometimes too concerned with symbols of success. The Mercedes and BMW and not enough with the excellence itself that they are supposed to reflect and which most of us can attain only is Dom Haussmann would say in the old fashioned way by working for it. Let me tap on another thought. Which may be even more important as you take these momentous steps

and as you begin to achieve your success it might be a pretty good idea to remember your brothers and sisters and I'm using the term generically to mean everybody every race and every color who's not yet made it. Help them along make their road a little easier than yours was. Repay some of the investment in yourself by investing in the community. Equally important. Invest in your university. Let me talk for a moment specifically about the role of the university. This week is a milestone in the history of Howard University. Within the hour you will formally dedicate a new school of business and public administration building. You are now formally in the mainstream of educating and being educated into the most important pursuits of our day business management and public service. This is this is an

exciting time but more important it is a challenge to do something significant where other schools including the revered Harvard Business School have not been so successful. In short. It is a challenge to managers not bureaucrats writing in ink magazine several years ago Albert Shapiro himself an academic put it very bluntly. Let me quote just a fragment. There are virtually no colleges of business in the United States today right. SHAPIRO There are only academies of bureaucratic middle management the one thousand one hundred eighty institutions granting degrees in business and manage to teach how to fit into and serve the 5000 largest corporations. The concepts and values are part of the culprit. Those that are taught are for the corporate bureaucrat or staff professionals. And here is the clincher. Although the

typical MBA might vote for a conservative political ticket Shapiro says his training has prepared him to work equally well in the Department of Energy. General Motors are Soviet commissariat. SHAPIRO then goes on to point out that in all these institutions virtually nothing is talked. About a central subject that is virtually the heart and soul of commercial success among blacks small business and entrepreneurship. Here's what he says. Small business and entrepreneurship are practically invisible in the curriculum and textbooks of so-called schools of business administration. Most schools off of one are doing courses on small business but they never require. And are usually taught by outsiders or professors who've given up hope of promotion.

You may think this is a little extreme but consider this in the August 2nd issue of The Wall Street Journal just last month the lead story on page one carried this headline many blacks jump off the corporate ladder to be entrepreneurs. The second here don't get read feeling their rights are limited. They launch financial high tech firms. You'll forgive me for quoting so much but I think it's right on target for today's occasion. Here are just a few sentences from the article in The Wall Street Journal just a decade ago. Corporate America is where ambitious blacks wanted to be. Business schools were enrolling black students and corporations were integrating their management ranks between 1972 and 1982. The number of black managers and officials surged 83 percent to four hundred and

forty five thousand today. The booming black hiring has slowed the results. Blacks not only have management streamlined at many companies but also of the Reagan administration easing of affirmative action guidelines. Many blacks who've made it into middle management complain that they are underused and barred from senior executive positions although they now constitute three point nine percent of all managers says Charles Grant who used to be a vice president of need. Corporation you have you'd have a hard time counting a dozen who are heads of divisions or subsidiaries of all Fortune 500 companies minority managers are concentrated in staff jobs such as personnel public relations or government affairs positions. Unlike online jobs seldom lead to the inner

sanctum. The article goes on at considerable length to tell of a number of black executives in comfortable positions earning from 50000 to $70000 and more who gave up those jobs and the accompanying perks to start businesses of their own. Their motivation is aptly summed up by Charles Gray who is also the immediate past president of the National Black MBA Association. In describing his decision to leave corporate life and become an entrepreneur in the corporation you've got to take the riskier assignments and prove yourself over and over again. If you show results you get promoted at first. But sooner or later you'll hit a bottleneck and know that. That's as far as any black is going to go in that company. Then you've got to decide on whether to keep banging on the door to go higher or to go it alone. That's the end of the quotation and I

want you to consider it in the life of Professor Shapiro's observations about business schools preparing people for middle management staff type jobs. In all fairness to companies like me corporation and Ford Motor Company two firms mentioned by name as having been jumped off by entrepreneurial class. There are thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands of employees in the same position and I think for two main reasons. One there just aren't that many inner sanctum positions and the competition for those that do exist is fearful and Professor Shapiro's assertion that MBA A's are taught to work for. Rather than to run businesses probably refers more to five. But that's an interesting thought in itself because historically black success has been closely linked to

entrepreneurship entrepreneurship in small business entrepreneurship in the profession. My late brother in law a doctor in Cleveland that he start riding the rails is a dining car a Guinness I know worked his way through Howard Dental School driving a PE. One of my most successful real estate entrepreneurs here in Washington started out by selling vacuum cleaners door to door when he was nine years old. And I'm sure each of you could read numerous examples of your room where entrepreneurs because we have to be. And that's good because it means that how in university by virtue of being the major black institution of higher learning has a large supply of a vital resource the motivation to succeed on one's own. While I'm sure many of you who are here today as students will succeed in

corporate life as in the professions if current and past history is any indicator and ultimately high proportion of you will succeed as entrepreneurs you will move on the fast track because there will be nothing on no one to hold you back. You will wish more because the stakes are higher much higher and most of all you will succeed against impossible odds because there's no one sitting around telling you it's impossible. But wherever you go whatever you do I urge you to do two things. First of all never forget that at Howard University you are a part of a great and noble tradition. Howard is and always has been a school of leadership not followership. Howard is and always has been a school of excellence not mediocrity. How it is

and always has been a school of independence and independent thought. Not me too ism some how it is and always has been a school of innovation and change not reactionary ism and resistance to change how it is and always has been a school with human dignity of all people supersedes racial pride and ambition. How it is more than an institution how it is more than a school it is a community of all that is great and noble and urge you all to support it by your own dedication to excellence and your own example and I'm sure the doctor won't object to my mentioning this. You can also support how material contributions of Kashan to kill you. Secondly and finally let me urge you again to share your success with

others by making the weight easier by providing opportunities and particularly by involving yourself in community and political affairs.