About 250 gather for 4th Men of Color conference

On Saturday, 250 students from around the Midwest came together for the two-day Men of Color Leadership Conference at IU.\nHeld at the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center, men and women of all ethnicities were invited to learn and discuss how they can take part in bringing dialogue to action.\n“The purpose of this conference is to provide men of color, African-American, Latino, Asian-American and Native American people a platform where we can present issues in our community and serve as a platform that we can discuss issues that bear upon academic success,” said Patrick D. Smith, conference chair and director of the Office of Mentoring Services and Leadership Development.\nThe conference began on Friday and ended Saturday. It was a mix of keynote speakers and workshops focusing on how to bring dialogue to action. \nMichigan State University, Central Michigan University, Eastern Illinois University, Morgan State University, IU-Northwest, IU-Purdue University Indianapolis and IU-Bloomington were all represented this \nweekend.\n“The workshops were meant to provide students with a how-to, hands-on approach to becoming advocates on their own behalf,” Smith said. “They can then leave the conference feeling empowered so that they can go back to their institutions and apply the information that \nthey’ve learned.” \nThe workshops that were offered mainly focused on the theme of the conference, “Political Education for Social Change: Moving From Dialogue to Action.” \nSome of the workshops included “Don’t Hate the Media,” “Combating Racial Prejudice” and “How Not to Get Your Butt Kicked,” which focused on different ways to resolve conflict.\n“The workshops have provided me with a lot of information I’ve never noticed before,” said Robert Jones, a senior at Eastern Illinois University. “In the media workshop, they talked about Facebook and how we can now upload our own stories on the Web.”\nThe keynote speakers included Bakari Kitwana, who is an international authority on hip-hop, Indiana Representative Vernon G. Smith and Eric D. Thomas from Michigan State University.\n“The speakers are very passionate about the messages they are trying to bring,” Jones said. “They are trying to make a difference to help make something positive happen in our communities.”\nOn Friday, there was a networking social held at the Indiana Memorial Union where students could talk with the presenters of the workshops and discuss their interests and what they would learn about the following day.\n“The reason why we chose these presenters was because they had to have a project or a presentation that will move the participants from dialogue to action,” said senior and Conference Program Chair Ellis Dumas.\nThere were also many booths set up in the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center. The booths included representatives from Big Brothers Big Sisters, the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, the Hope Foundation and La Casa. There was also a booth with information on how to apply to graduate school.\n“Every year the conference has been expanding,” Dumas said. “With our next conference, we will have the same goals, but we’d like to have people come back and give us feedback on how they could help their \ncommunity.”