Clark Atlanta University this week announced its participation in the Clinton Global Initiative University Network, a growing consortium of colleges and universities that support, mentor, and provide seed funding to student leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs who are developing solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
Sixty-five colleges and universities worldwide, including CAU, are now part of the network.
“Improving education, environments and economies worldwide begins with, and must be bolstered by, local efforts,” CAU President Carlton E. Brown said in a prepared statement.
Clark Atlanta University will provide $10,000 in funding for CAU students who are selected to pursue their Commitments to Action at CGI U 2015.
Commitments to Action, a unique feature of the CGI U model, are new, specific, and measurable initiatives that address global challenges across CGI U’s five focus areas: Education, Environment and Climate Change, Peace and Human Rights, Poverty Alleviation, and Public Health.
Clark Atlanta University will also mentor student commitment-makers as they develop and implement their plans in the coming months.
Three Clark Atlanta student leaders will serve as the university’s inaugural commitment-makers through the iLead CAU Program: Each One, Reach One, Teach One, a new initiative designed to address three major gaps in the local education system. Aaron Chambers, a sophomore computer science major from Beaumont, Texas; Walter L. Clark Jr., a senior criminal justice major from Milwaukee; and Alexis O. Cureton, a senior sociology major from Indianapolis, Ind., will, under the leadership of the institution’s Department of Leadership and Student Development, begin tackling the program’s multi-year agenda: increasing the graduation rate among young African-American males in the city’s South Fulton County community, increasing college enrollment among African-American males and increasing the number of African-American males who pursue education as a profession.
The university’s funding for this initiative comes from Georgia Power Co. with the strong support of Metro Atlanta Region Senior Vice President Walter Dukes.
“We are immensely proud that these young men, under the supervision of Willie Todd, Ph.D., executive director for student affairs, have conceptualized a focused approach to enhancing the education of African-American males in our community and, in doing so, seek to engage more in becoming teachers. We are honored that our students will be a part of the 2015 Clinton Global Initiative University,” Brown said.
Since its inaugural meeting in 2008, CGI U has brought together more than 6,500 student leaders from 145 countries and more than 875 schools. Past speakers include Madeleine Albright, Jack Dorsey, Jimmy Wales, Muhammad Yunus, Hawa Abdi Diblawe, and Jon Stewart.
For more information about the meeting, visit www.cgiu.org.
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