The Fourth Annual African American Male Initiative Consortium Conference to be held at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock will feature two leaders in college student success and will honor another.

Dr. Terrell Strayhorn of The Ohio State University, and Dr. Glen Jones, president of Henderson State University, will be featured speakers at the two-day conference to be held Thursday and Friday, Feb. 27-28.

On Friday at 11:50 a.m., the Student Services Center will be dedicated and renamed in honor of Charles W. Donaldson, former Vice Chancellor of UALR’s Division of Educational, Student Services, and Student Life. The ceremony will be held in the newly named Charles W. Donaldson Student Services Center.

Jones will open the conference with his presentation, “African American Males and College Success,” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 27, in the UALR Donaghey Student Center, Ledbetter Rooms A, B, and C.

Strayhorn will be the plenary speaker for the administrative track at 9 a.m. Friday, Feb. 28, in the UALR Student Services Center Auditorium.

His topic will be “African American Male College Success: Results Oriented Strategies From What We Know.”

Strayhorn is a faculty research associate in the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, senior research associate in the Todd A. Bell National Resources Center on the African American Male, and faculty affiliate in the Department of African and African American Studies.

The conference is hosted by UALR’s Division of Student Affairs, which created the AAMI program at UALR four years ago to help provide mentoring and support aimed at increasing the retention and graduation rates of African American men.

The two-day consortium is made possible in part with funding from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and Pulaski Technical College.

The conference offers one track for students and tracks designed for administrators and faculty. Students will engage in interactive workshops that focus on leadership, healthy choices, and student development; while administrators will garner insight on how to lead their students to success.

Speakers Odell Bizzell and Vincent Harris will address students in a concurrent session to be held at 9 a.m. Friday in the UALR Donaghey Student Center. Their topic will be “Lead. Standout. Impact.”

Registration is free to UALR students and employees. Cost for non-UALR faculty and administrators is $75 and $25 for non-UALR students. Register online.

Contact Harvell Howard at 501.569.8713 or hlhoward@ualr.edu for further information.