Page 3 - Florida Sentinel 2-7-17

Feature
Leadership Network Created At USF To Help Black Students
BY KENYA WOODARD Sentinel Feature Writer
A new initiative recently launched at the University of South Florida will provide more scholarship monies to the school’s Black students.
Just a few months after its establishment, the Black Leadership Network has five founding members who have committed a total of $25,000 over five years to the program, which is ex- pected to grow in member- ship and donations, said Luz Randolph, develop- ment officer for diversity initiatives for the USF Foun- dation.
The goal is to have 10 scholarships endowed by 2018, she said.
The graduation rate among USF’s Black students is high, but so is their debt load, giving them a rough start when they finish
school, Randolph said. Scholarships can help lessen the financial burden students face when they leave the university, she
said. Community engagement
is critical to the network’s growth, so only $1,000 a year is required to endow a scholarship, Randolph said.
“One-thousand is a lot but when you (contribute) $88 a month, it makes it easier,” she said. “We’ve made it so everyone can contribute.”
Randolph said a mar- keting campaign is being de- veloped to attract more members to the network, es-
pecially alumni. “We’re trying to figure
out ways to have our com- munity come back together and be supportive of USF in different ways,” she said.
The network’s founding members include, Jerry Bell, Anddrikk Frazier, Edwin Narain, Tracy
Muir and Annette Billingsley-Cheze.
Frazier said he and his wife, Rena have established the Anddrikk and Rena Fraizer Family Scholarship.
While the main objective of the network is raising scholarship money, mem- bers also can provide other
valuable resources to stu- dents like mentorship and career guidance, he said.
“If it’s a lack of resources, that should not be an issue,” he said. “We want to make sure we can cover whatever these needs are so they can focus on their education and graduate.”
Jerry Bell with USF president Judy Genshaft at USF event, Anddrikk Frazier and former State Rep. Ed Narain are 3 of the founders of the Black Leadership Network.
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