Xavier's Confusious Institute Featured IN HBCU Digest

Xavier University of Louisiana made history in the latter part of 2011, becoming the first HBCU to sign a memorandum of understanding to establish a campus Confucius Institute, a training and exchange hub for culture and launguage between the US and China.

... XULA's partnership with Hebei Univesity in Baoding, China will allow students to travel to China, and will bring curriculum in Mandarin to New Orleans. Xavier is the first HBCU to formalize an agreement to launch a Confucius Institute, and is one of about 80 centers in the United States.

http://www.hbcudigest.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Digest-50.pdf

(New Orleans LA) - Senior Administrators from Xavier University of Louisiana have signed a historic agreement that will make Xavier the first HBCU in the nation and the first university in Louisiana to establish a Confucius Institute (CI).

Dr. Loren J. Blanchard, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs led a four-member delegation that consisted of Dr. Monique Guillory, Special Assistant to the Administration, Dr. Rosalind Hale, Chair of Xavier’s Division of Education, and Ms. Julia Wilson, an international consultant. The official document was endorsed by Ms. Lin Xu, Director General of Hanban, the Confucius Institute headquarters in Beijing.

In the process of developing the focus for the Institute, Xavier has partnered with Hebei University in Baoding, China. The two universities recently formalized their collaborative agreement upon the opening of the 6th Annual Confucius Institute Conference in Beijing. Xavier’s CI application was the only one approved in conjunction with this meeting. Joint programming for Xavier’s CI will specifically target language instruction (Mandarin and English), Education, Pharmacy and Art.

Reposted from WSJ.COM

Katy Daugherty enrolled at Tennessee State University because of the school's flexible daytime, evening and online classes and its new urban-studies program.

Once on campus at this historically black college, where more than 70% of the students are African-American, Ms. Daugherty, 29, who is white, became the minority.

"It was definitely different, having grown up and been in the majority, and all of a sudden you are in the minority," she says.

In what has become a mutually beneficial relationship for schools and students, many of the nation's 105 historically black colleges are increasingly wooing non-black students. The goals: to boost lagging enrollment and offset funding shortfalls.

Reposted from NOLA.COM

Moving past sweaty workers lugging tools and heavy equipment, architects Dave Coon and Mac Ball strode into Xavier University's chapel-in-progress.

It was dim inside the eight-sided sanctuary, but there was just enough light for Coon to point out details in the soaring, sloping ceiling, which rises from 35 feet to 52 feet alongside Interstate 10 and has been a curiosity for drivers for months.

As Coon spoke, raising his voice to be heard over a pneumatic drill, sparks flashed from a welder's torch high overhead, about halfway up the ceiling.

The chapel, named for Xavier's founder, St. Katharine Drexel, will be topped off by a cross. Surrounding that cross will be a ring of skylights that will let in a flood of natural light.

"Like a halo," Ball said.