VGCC students and staff attend Minority Male Mentoring Conference

Vance-Granville Community College was well represented at the Minority Male Mentoring Conference by five student “mentees” – Dawn Tom, Adrian Davis, Ed Lyons, Jamelle Harris and J’Maine Richardson – and four staff members, including President Randy Parker, Student Activities coordinator Peyton Boyd, South Campus assistant director Jason Snelling and Franklin Campus assistant director Anthony Pope (who was also a speaker at the conference).

The conference, held April 11-13 at the Sheraton Imperial Hotel in Research Triangle Park, attracted more than 700 people from across the state. The overall focus of the conference was to engage public and private sectors in working to develop a system of support – on state and community levels – that truly embraces minority men as achievers of their dreams. The North Carolina Community College System sponsored the conference in partnership with the North Carolina Fatherhood Development Advisory Council, which strives to promote competencies, increase knowledge, and provide training to local and statewide fatherhood organizations in their efforts in assisting and supporting fathers and their families.

Mentee Jamelle Harris of Louisburg, a second-semester student at Franklin Campus who attended the conference after one of the other mentees could not go, was glad he did when he and another student won a $500 scholarship sponsored by the Sallie Mae Foundation. He was very excited and grateful for the opportunity to attend an event of this magnitude. “This conference has inspired me to fulfill my dream of becoming a teacher, a principal and ultimately the superintendent of a school system,” Harris said.

“We’re proud of Jamelle and all the students, faculty and staff who are part of Vance-Granville’s male mentoring program, which is designed to assist first-year ethnically diverse students in acquiring the confidence, resources and skills needed to succeed, both academically and socially,” President Parker noted. “African-American males make up the smallest segment of the VGCC student population, but we are excited to be working on reversing that trend.” Parker urged people and organizations who have questions about the mentoring program and who wish to be involved in it to contact Vance-Granville Community College Student Affairs at (252) 738-3234.