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Stay in school activists inform and motivate U

January 29, 2001

The Office of Minority Student Affairs was out in full force to keep students from dropping out of school at Saturday’s Racial Ethnic Student Retention Conference: Overcoming F.E.A.R.

Students gained tips and learned real expectations for college at the 11th annual conference, titled “False Expectations Appearing Real,” at the Union.

“I don’t see sisters beating down the doors of brothers who are dropping out of school left and right,” said Lenzy Bell, while speaking to more than 100 students. “I don’t see brothers beating down the doors of sisters who are dropping out of school left and right.”

Bell, a truancy officer for Kalamazoo Public Schools, started the conferences’ activities with his presentation, “Why are you in college?”

“We get a lot of our best and brightest minds that never make it here, or make it here but get connected with the wrong people,” he said. “They end up regretting it the rest of their lives.”

After the opening session, students attended workshops on relationship-building, college transition, study abroad programs, and stress and time management.

DeAndre Carter, founder of DCI Motivational Services and Mr. Black MSU, led the “Time is of the Essence” workshop.

“I believe I have a lot of valuable information to offer,” Carter, a marketing senior, said. “That information can change the way that students manage their time, achieve their goals and graduate from the university.”

“I have a sincere and intense passion to help people grow and succeed in life - and that is why I wanted to be here.”

Some students said their time was well-spent at the conference.

“I’ll probably get better organizational skills and more information about the things that are open to us to help us with our learning experience and social skills,” Wade Lewis, a packaging freshman said.

Communication senior Ena English said she used the conference to help motivate herself for life after college.

“I’m graduating and getting out into the real world and I know it isn’t going to be anything like college,” she said. “I just want to get an idea, and not to set myself up for failure, and to get a realistic grasp.”

The workshops were followed by an address by keynote speaker, Mario Rivas, associate dean of undergraduate studies at San Francisco State University. Rivas spoke on making college meaningful in the new millennium.

Officials from OMSA said Rivas’ insight was crucial to the conference.

“He has been doing a lot of work in undergraduate studies and he is providing some good information to students as to how to be successful and how to maximize the experience,” said Murray Edwards, senior coordinator for Minority Student Affairs.

Edwards said the event was a success.

“The most important thing is to help students realize that they control a lot of their success,” he said. “These are some of the success strategies they can use to be successful. This is information they can use to be better students.”

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