The author of “Tricks of the Grade: Street-Smart Strategies for Acing College” will be the featured speaker at the Arkansas African American Male Initiative Consortium Conference Thursday and Friday, Feb. 24 and 25.

Representatives from 18 to 20 colleges, universities, and community agencies will be participating in the UALR event in Ledbetter Hall Rooms A, B, and C in the Donaghey Student Center.

Joe Martin, author and educational consultant, was at 24 the youngest professor ever hired at a Florida university.

He has addressed more than 450 organizations, associations, businesses, colleges and universities, helping hundreds of thousands of students and staff members across the country achieve more, live and serve more passionately, and maximize their leadership potential.

In 1999, the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities selected him as its national “College Speaker of the Year.”

Currently, Martin serves as a visiting professor and consultant with Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Fla. He will address the conference at 7 p.m. in the Diamond Area of the DSC on Thursday, Feb. 24.

The two-track consortium will offer students motivational seminars and goal-planning strategy workshops.  Administrators will hear from Dr. Shaun Harper of the Graduate School of Education, Africana Studies, and Gender Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and others on how society can help young black men successfully matriculate through their college experience to graduation.

Harper, who will speak at the opening plenary at 9:15 a.m. Friday, Feb. 25, will discuss black male college access and achievement and will present current research on retention and graduation of African American male students. He also will discuss best practices that must be present to have the greatest impact with this population of students.

Other speakers include Cory Anderson, vice president of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation; Dr. Angela Kremers, the foundation’s senior associate for education; and Tracy Steele, chief operating officer for The STAND Foundation.

According to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, the black student college graduation rate remains a “dismally low 43 percent, but the rate has improved by 4 percent over the last three years.”

“This year’s conference partners and supporters from across the the state will address critical issues affecting African-American male students and review research findings and best practices for retaining and graduating these young men from college,” UALR’s AAMI Coordinator Harvell Howard said.

“The conference is a part of a larger initiative, the Marginalized Male Workforce Education Consortium (MMWEC), sponsored by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation.  MMWEC was established to address issues uniquely impacting males in our communities.”

The AAMI Conference is funded in part by a grant from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation. For more information about the conference or the AAMI programs, contact Howard at 501-569-8711.