Universities Partner for Program
South Carolina State University and Colorado State University
South Carolina State University and Colorado State University will jointly collaborate on a year long project to bring students from both campuses together to create working teams dedicated to servant leadership principles, with the goal to complete both domestic and international service projects. The group is known as the . In addition, we proposed to work with the Oprah Foundation and complete the international service project in South Africa at her newly built Leadership Academy for Girls. South Carolina State University students and advisors made a site visit to Colorado State University on March 13-16, 2008 to begin a multicultural leadership program with the hope of bringing a better understanding of each student’s differences and similarities.
This was the first time SC State and CSU participated in a program that brought 36 students, 19 from SC State and 17 from CSU together. The SC State group is under the Leadership of Dr. Valerie Fields the Interim Vice President for Student Affairs and Mrs. Cammy D. Grate as the Advisor. Dr. Blanche Hughes is leading the group with Colorado State University. Both universities, SC State (a historically black university) and CSU’s (predominately white student’s body) talked about multicultural issues and social justice. The group is called the “Shades of Promise” due to its mission to address culture and ethnic issues. As one of the student leaders said: “It’s all about respecting our differences and appreciating our likenesses and that we’re all very different and all very much the same,”
The “Shades of Promise” group from Colorado State will visit SC State during homecoming weekend with their arrival on campus Thursday, October 9, 2008 and departing on Sunday, October 12, 2008. The participants from both Universities will open be the “Special Feature” in opening the step show during homecoming weekend. The students are excited and ready, the entire group participated in practicing during their visit to Colorado.
This project is inspired by the desire to:
• provide U.S. students with a multi-layered experience to help them learn from one another through WORKING together on problems bigger than themselves, their "worlds"; global leadership training is critical to students’ success;
• relationships between CSU and SCSU professionals dedicated to the knowing that we can make a difference in solving our own problems through working together on others' problems;
• work with our own high achieving students during their collegiate experiences as this is one of the last formal opportunities that we as "teachers/elders" have to influence them before they head off to become the leaders of tomorrow.
Why Us?
SC State — one of the oldest and most successful HBCU’s in the US; with a mission to educate young African American students for successful careers both here and abroad; SCSU has a strong infrastructure with expertise in service learning
Coloradao State — one of Colorado’s most successful universities, with a strong commitment to leadership and cross-cultural education for its students; CSU also has a strong service learning expertise.
The “Shades of Promise” will be traveling to Tanzania in January 2009. Also the President of Tanzania will speak at our 2008 Commencement in May.
"Shades of Promise" In the News