14 The Hampton Roads Messenger


Volume 8 Number 10


Bryant & Stratton College Receives Outstanding Student Chapter Award


. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has awarded a 2013-2014 Outstanding Student Chapter designation to Bryant & Stratton College – Virginia Beach.


This


was awarded to a select


number


designation of


SHRM student chapters whose


programs and activities were at a level that distinguished them from other chapters. This award represents significant achievement in one of five categories: Recruitment, Programming/Education,


Innovation/


Technology, Campus/Community Service or Promotion of Assurance of Learning Assessment.


association devoted to human resource management.


SHRM is the world’s largest Representing


more


than 275,000 professional and 19,000 student members in over 140 countries, the association serves the needs of HR professionals and advances the interests of the HR profession.


“We are proud to have so many Outstanding Student Chapter awards this year. The programs and events these


participated in are truly exceptional,” said Laurie


student members have McIntosh, director


of


member engagement. “They are all helping to shape the future of the HR profession through community service, technology, advocacy or another area.”


Our Faith


“SOWING AND REAPING” By Rev. Dr. Gregory Headen


There is a sim-


ple principle of life and of the King- dom of God that we so easily miss. It is the principle of “sowing and reaping”.


The


down side of a highly technologi- cal world is that it reduces our need to think, calculate, or reason as we grow accustomed to pushing buttons and receiving ready-made answers. In agricultural societies, seed time and harvest belonged to the rhythm of life. This was the world of the Bible when planting and harvesting were not strange concepts to people. Have you ever heard anybody say, “I am waiting for my ship to come in”. Then you ask, “When did you send it out?” The reply comes back the no ship has been sent out. This means that this person feels entitled to reap the benefits of a ship coming in without assuming any responsi- bility for sending on out. Let’s for- get about political labels for now, and lift up something true for life. If you want something out of life, you should expect to put something into life. We were born with a lot of givens (life, health, strength, a


brain, air to breathe, parents, sexual- ity, and emotions). Some of these develop automatically over time. What will we build on those givens? We sow in several ways. First, we sow what is outside of us (seeds, money, gold, silver, and anything we acquire that’s tangible and can be shared or invested). Second, we sow those intangibles that are with- in us (our dreams, ideas, thoughts, and emotions like love and appre- ciation). These we sow into others’ lives, and if they are received and nurtured, they produce a great har- vest. Lastly, we are called to sow our very selves.


There are some


callings in life where you cannot give part of yourself. You have to give it all. We may have come to the place in history where total commit- ment to anything is an anomaly. Do we even have the capacity to believe in something deeply enough that we are willing to sacrifice all, even life itself?


Our faith rests on the


complete sacrifice of God’s Son on a cross. When speaking of his im- pending fate in Jerusalem, he said, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24 KJV).


Chapters have the opportunity to


earn an award based on the number of activities they complete during the merit award cycle, which ran from April 1, 2013, to March 31, 2014. Of the 173 SHRM-affiliated student chapters that received awards in the 2013-2014 Merit Award program, 21 chapters received an Outstanding Chapter chapters


Award designation, received


a Superior 28 Merit


Award designation, 32 chapters achieved


Merit Award status, and 41 chapters received the Honorable Mention designation.


The SHRM student chapter merit award program, which began in 1972, exists to encourage development of more effective student chapters and to promote


outstanding chapter operations,


chapter programming and professional development of members, support of the human resource profession and SHRM engagement.


School Closures FROM PAGE 10


using [school districts’] own metrics and standards, school closures”


are


selectively used against students of color.


New Orleans, set to become


the nation’s first charter-only school district this fall, has been ground zero for school closure-driven


reforms.


In the city’s post-Katrina reform frenzy, New Orleans has shut down all but five of its traditional public schools, kicked out tenured teachers, and replaced schools with charters and a predominantly black teaching force with young, overwhelmingly white recruits from the controversial education reform and teaching training program Teach for America. However, the complaint alleges,


struggling


charter schools with higher white enrollments have been spared as the district “turned a blind eye and allowed those schools to remain open.”


As neighborhood schools are shuttered, students in New Orleans have to cross town, sometimes up to 10 and 15 miles, to get to school. That means that even young elementary school students are waiting at bus stops at 5:30 and 6:30 in the morning, the complaint alleges.


activities


and projects by student chapters in the following areas: student chapter requirements,


In New Orleans, that means that


it’s much harder for parents to be involved in their kids’ education, says Minh Nguyen, executive director of the community organizing and advocacy group VAYLA-New Orleans. Parents without cars can’t just pop over to their children’s school for a parent-teacher conference, or lean on the community for advice in navigating their child’s faraway school, says Nguyen.


“Schools are cornerstones of


communities,” says Adrienne Dixson, a former New Orleans public school teacher and professor of education policy at University of Illinois. They’re very often the heart of the community, the only place where parents and families


and community members


regularly interact. And when they’re gone, it undercuts a community.


In Chicago, a rash of gun violence in recent years has been aggravated


Pacifica FROM PAGE 13 and miscellaneous grading.


Early on Merrill kept her day job for many years to pay the bills, and worked her business at night. For nearly 15 years her company grew very slowly. Starting in 2007, Merrill, over a two year span took several major steps that collectively propelled her business forward. First, she began to work full-time in her business and earned her Class ‘A’ General Contractors license. Second, she applied to participate in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 8(a) Business Development


Program.


Third, she began strategically growing her firm’s bonding capacity with the SBA’s Surety bond Guarantee Program.


Merrill employed 42 contractors last


year, and has a year-round workforce of 26 people. She has secured


many contracting


opportunities for national parks like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone which has massively grown her


June 2014


by school closures, says Brown, the director of the Journey for Justice Alliance. As a result of school closures, students have been forced to cross neighborhood and rival gang lines to get to school, putting themselves in daily harm just to get their education.


What’s more, the complaint says, when schools are shuttered, students are reassigned to schools that are very often no better than the ones they were sent away from.


School closures are not limited to the three cities named in the federal complaints. Detroit,


Baltimore, Houston, Milwaukee


Columbus, ,


Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and St. Louis have all closed dozens of schools in the last 15 years. New York City has closed 140 since 2002. “The common element among them is they’re district with high concentrations of kids of color, most of them in poverty,” says Dixson. Indeed, school closures are a phenomena which is disproportionate- ly targeted at schools with high Afri- can-American and Latino enrollments.


There is a political tension,


though. The Obama administration, via reform initiatives such as Race to the Top, has written school closures into its reform mandates. The Department of Education,


in other The Department words, is


arguably driving the very civil rights violations that groups are asking it to investigate.


of Justice


did not respond to a request for comment. A Department of Education spokesperson told Colorlines that the agency doesn’t confirm the receipt of federal complaints, but does let relevant parties know if it opens an investigation from a


complaint it’s


received. Johnson of the Advancement Project and Brown of the Journey for Justice Alliance both said they had not heard anything from the Departments of Education or Justice.


“In America, schools being we have good destabilized as a


direct result of district policy and the continuation of destructive policies, and being repackaged and sold to us as school reform,” says Brown. “We’re trying to call [Attorney General Eric] Holder to the plate and say, ‘You gotta swing.’”


business. She has grown revenue from $1.8 million in 2007 to $13.8 million in 2013. Merrill attributes her success to the many talented people who are part of the Merrill, Inc. team. She knows first-hand that the SBA’s programs create real opportunities for small businesses. The success she has enjoyed allows her to create jobs and provide subcontracting opportunities along


with community.


National Small Business Week The National


Small Business


Persons of the Year and runners-up were selected from among the winners in 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam.


Every year since 1963, the U.S.


Small Business Administration takes the opportunity to highlight through National Small Business Week the impact of entrepreneurs, small business owners, and others from all 50 states and U.S. territories. This year’s events were held from May 12-16, in San Francisco, Kansas City, Boston and Washington, D.C., offering tips, tools and training for small businesses to start, succeed and grow.


giving back to the


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