In honor of Black History Month, The 5th annual Black Issues Conference took place Saturday February 6, 2010 in the University Center at 9:30 am. The theme of this year’s conference, “Black in America: How far we have come…Yet, so far to go, featured multiple workshops and speakers that focused on the issues within the African American community, with inspirational discussions on how to solve these issues. Workshop topics pertaining to leadership, professionalism and race were selected by students on campus. “We sent out calls, flyers, and emails to different list serves on campus and selected up to 20 that we felt to be fitting for this year’s theme,” stated Robyn Davidson a senior and president of NAACP and Co-Chair of the (BIC) conference, “There was a lot more student representations this year compared to last year’s conference, a lot of undergraduates stepped up, especially the freshmen.”
This year’s Charlie Lemmons Keynote Speaker was Marshawn Evans, entrepreneur, attorney, and author. Evans speech included a brief but descriptive outline on how to be successful in the future. “We really wanted a strong black woman to be the keynote speaker this year and I’m very happy we went with Marshawn.” Robyn stated. Evans talked of how having confidence, being able to communicate, make connections with others, having great character, and caring about people are key steps to advancing and becoming business savvy. “You have to tell yourself that I am entitled to everything good and realize that your actions are congruent to your expectations,” was one of many quotes Evans stated that afternoon. The black issue conference was started back in 2006 by Tierney Bates, then Assistant Director of UT’s Minority Student Affairs, and a group of undergraduate members who felt the importance to start a conference on campus that addressed black issues and culture on campus. There were a series of students in attendance this year, ranging from freshmen to graduate and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. “This conference is so important because there are many issues at UT and because African Americans are the dominate minority here, it’s nice to get together and discuses and solve these issues,” Alexis Tidwell a senior majoring in Vocal Music Education stated, “The Haiti presentation was so powerful because it made me realize my responsibility to help out country.”
There were even students from other schools in Tennessee, Chatrice Barnes, a sophomore from University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, was one of many students from her school that also enjoyed the conference. “I really love that UT does this conference every year, it’s great to know that we can come together as a people from all over Tennessee and establish relationships, I personally enjoyed the what does the media have to do with it workshop.” Next year’s Black Issue Conference will take place Saturday, February 5, 2011. Students interested in participating can contact naacp@utk.edu to get involved.
