Techies dig in at Google (Image: Google)

As part of Google’s commitment to advancing computing and technology, they are providing scholarships to support students in their study of computer science.

The Generation Google Scholarship is a new program for aspiring computer scientists to excel in technology and become active role models and leaders in the field.  Selected students will receive $10,000 USD (for those studying in the US) or $5,000 CAD (for those studying in Canada) a year for up to four years (or until graduation, whichever comes first) so long as they maintain criteria for renewal.  Recipients will also be invited to attend Google’s Computer Science Summer Institute (CSSI) in the summer of 2012.

Who Should Apply?

Applicants must be high school seniors and meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Intends to be enrolled in or accepted as a full-time student at a university in the US or Canada for the 2012-2013 school year
• Intends to be enrolled in or accepted for enrollment in a baccalaureate Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, or related program
• Exemplifies leadership and demonstrates a commitment to and passion for computer science and technology through involvement in their community
• Strong record of academic achievement
• A student from an underrepresented group in computer science (African American, Hispanic, American Indian, Female, or a Person with a Disability)
• Demonstrates financial need.

For complete details, visit the Generation Google Scholarship site.

Deadline to apply: Monday, February 20, 2012

Questions? Email us at generationgoogle@google.com.

For more information about student opportunities at Google, check out www.google.com/students.

First Lady Michelle Obama turns 48 today, as millions send their birthday greetings and well-wishes from around the world.

Mrs. O has undoubtedly made her mark on history becoming the first African-American first lady. She also makes a remarkable impact by spreading awareness on childhood obesity and education and serving as a style icon for millions of working women from the East to the West. The ultimate “mom-in-chief,” Obama juggles parenting with pursuing her passion for not just being on the arm of the president, but making a difference in the lives of youth and their families. Her influence has been far reaching, from what she wears to how she chooses to be a hands-on parent.

Check out more on Michelle Obama’s influence on the world and be inspired by how you too can make an impact:

Michelle Obama’s Profitable Style Profile

Michelle Obama’s Six Rules of Parenting

Michelle Obama Joins Twitter

Darrell Pope rebooted his career by getting a degree at Kaplan (Image: Courtesy of subject)

It was clear to Darrell Pope that he had to make a change. His industry was quickly changing and he could see the you-better-acquire-additional-skills writing on the wall. “I saw the economy changing. My background is basically associated with brick and mortar, and I saw all of the manufacturers moving off-shore. I thought, boy, I better get with the program or I won’t have a job,” said Pope, who is a now manager at Celestica, an electronics manufacturing company. Pope said he had regional view of the world and knew that he had to develop a world view and learn how business is done in other cultures. Staying abreast of the world’s changing environment, he knew, was vital to staying relevant and competitive at any age. “I think people become stale by not attending school regularly, you become complacent. Today’s world is always changing. You have to stay up on changes in technology and people. Perspectives are different now than they were 20 years ago.” Since receiving his secondary degree at Kaplan University, Pope, 50, says he feels energized about the new skills he has acquired and by the access understanding new technology allows him—including working virtually and sharing information with partners around the world via the Internet.

Though making the choice to return to school and take courses at Kaplan University in 2009 was the easy part, what was challenging, says Pope, was figuring out how to balance his working full-time, traveling, studying and having a family. “My wife would complain that all I did was work and study. I was working 50 hours a week and going to school 20 hours. I learned a lot about time management during that time. You can do anything you want [in] life, you just have to allot time to it.” Fortunately, through Kaplan’s virtual classes, he was able to see it through and earn his masters degree in science and management in just two years.

Many in today’s job market find themselves pushed aside not only from younger workers but from those who have taken the initiative to expand their education. Pope says he believes people don’t go back to school because of the fear factor and not wanting to let others know just how much they don’t know; but his curriculum at Kaplan kept him motivated and on his toes. “What I liked [about Kaplan] was that I received a syllabus that said what the deliverables were, and you knew that if you met those deliverables, you’ll do well. That taught me that in any relationship you have to have expectations, and if you meet those expectations, the results should be good.”

When encouraging others to go back to school, Pope says simply, “just do it. It’s challenging, but you learn so much about yourself. You learn to become a lifelong learner.”

My school portrait as a 3rd grader, when I was a poor black kid. (Image: Courtesy of Virginia Edmond)

I’m one of the many people whose heads went numb while reading “If I Were A Poor Black Kid,” written by Gene Marks, a white male entrepreneur, author and self-described “mediocre certified public accountant” who writes about business and technology for Forbes. You can read it for yourself, but it boils down to this: All a poor black kid has to do to succeed is to avail himself of a few web sites (including Wikipedia), apps, web tools, online calculators, and some free books from Project Gutenberg (he even provides the links!), put together a study group of other motivated poor black kids on Skype, and then get into a magnet or charter school—or better yet, a private school. After that, find a high school guidance counselor, who will help them find the money to go to college, as well as after-school and summer jobs (not just any job, but one at “a law firm or business owned by the 1 percent”). From there, poor black kid, just learn software and how to write code, do some independent study and polish up your writing skills, and head off to college, after which, upon graduation, Marks and business owners like him will be waiting with open arms to hire you.

What planet does Marks live on? Hell if I know. He may be an expert on business and technology, but he clearly has no idea of what it means to be a poor black kid, nor of what it takes for such children to achieve success. Worse, he puts the responsibility for success entirely on the child, with no mention of schools, teachers, parents and the community in which the kid lives, all of which routinely represent obstacles instead of stepping stones to success. The fact is that America’s education system is in crisis, and black kids, who are the majority of the attendees of poorly-resourced, low-performing schools, are the primary casualties. The idea that a little initiative and a few websites are all a poor black child needs to navigate the devastation is just ludicrous. Marks wants to believe that you can fix the kid—or worse, that the kid can fix him or herself—without fixing the system.

I had the pleasure of meeting Marks, president of The Marks Group, a Philadephia-based sales and customer relationship management software firm, last year (we appeared together as guest experts on MSNBC’s Your Business), and I choose to believe he is well-intentioned. However, good intent is not a substitute for actually knowing what you are talking about. I kept waiting to read something in his article that would qualify him as a person deeply involved and/or intimately connected with black communities, poor or otherwise, much less black children. And I mean more than having black friends and acquaintances. (Assuming he does, and that he bothered to check with them. This might be a “get some black friends” issue.)

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It takes more than being a concerned, outside observer to have the expertise to offer solutions; it takes ongoing, direct engagement with those living the experience. And lest you think this response is just a knee-jerk reverse-racist reaction, being white does not necessarily disqualify you as an expert on the life and challenges of poor black children. There are white people who’ve spent extended time (as in years and decades, not hours and days) in black communities, talking and working with the parents, teachers, schools administrators and others who order the steps and shape the lives of poor black kids. They live and/or work in black communities, serving and mentoring such kids and getting to know their families and circumstances. Apparently, Marks is not one of them. As I read his post, I kept waiting for Marks to share evidence of expertise on urban education, or public education in general. To share the experiences that make it even remotely credible that he has the slightest idea of what it means to be a poor black child. To talk about the actual work he’s personally done to put the “solutions” he offers in his post to the test.

I have an opinion of what I think a child of a wealthy white family needs in order to become a well-rounded, productive, exceptional citizen. But I suspect that my experiences and knowledge (as a former poor black kid with an absent father, raised on public assistance by an under-educated, young, single mother of four) no more qualifies me to provide expert advice on that topic than Mark’s knowledge and experiences have prepared him to weigh in on this one.

On the other hand, I know about being a poor black kid, because I used to be one, raised on the Jersey shore not far from the West Philadelphia neighborhoods that are home to the black kids Marks purports to advise. As a father of three children educated at public schools in Brooklyn, I am intimately familiar with the obstacles facing resource-starved black kids. If Marks wanted an idea of what poor black kids need to succeed, he could have asked me. Better yet, he could have talked to Harlem Children’s Zone’s CEO Geoffrey Canada, Eagle Academy Foundation CEO David Banks or Capital Preparatory Magnet School Principal Steve Perry and other people who’ve made it their mission to help poor black kids succeed academically and beyond.

Which brings up another question: What was Marks really trying to accomplish with his article? Who is he really talking to? If Marks really intended to provide helpful advice to poor black kids—and the parents who want the best for them as passionately as he does for his kids—is Forbes really the right media platform to reach them, or to reach the people who live and work where they live? Poor black kids aren’t helped by web links and advice in blogs on media platforms they and their parents would never read (as if Forbes had the slightest interest in black communities and the people who live in them, rich, poor or otherwise). They need live, demonstrated, engagement and personal involvement from the people offering the solutions. Absent that, this post reminds me of the words of the great philosopher James Brown: “Like a dull knife, just ain’t cuttin.’ Just talkin’ aloud, and saying nothin’.”

The title of the column written by Forbes contributor Gene Marks, who happens to be white, is getting the side eye from many in the Black community today. In his column, posted yesterday, Marks says he was inspired by a speech President Obama gave in Kansas about inequality in America. It began to make the author, self-described as a “a middle aged white guy who comes from a middle class white background,” think about how much easier he and his children have it when compared to, say, kids in the inner city of West Philadelphia. But, Marks says, there are still ways that poor black kids can succeed in America. If he were a poor black kid, for example, he would “use Skype to study with other students who also want to do well in my school.”

So, in some ways, we guess he means, “If I were a poor black kid who had a computer at home so I could Skype my other classmates who could also afford a computer?”

Read more at Forbes.com

LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK: Is Marks on point with his commentary or totally out of line?

Then see our rebuttal: “If I Were a Rich, Privileged White Kid,” by Alfred Edmond, Jr.

Ludacris with his enterprising daughter, Karma

It’s every successful parent’s hope for their child to follow in their footsteps. In the case of rapper/actor/entrepreneur Chris “Ludacris” Bridges his 10-year-old daughter Karma Bridges has done just that—twice over. The budding entrepreneur, alongside her father, recently launched, KarmasWorld.com, an interactive Website that uses music and games as educational tools. Geared towards elementary school students (grades 1-6), Karma’s World reinforces the message that learning can be fun. “When you talk about Black Enterprise and we talk about building wealth for our families and our kids,” says Ludacris. “I’m extremely proud and extremely excited about this.”

Blending entertainment and education, the site currently features nine original songs that are all performed by Karma. With subject matter covering everything from mathematics and geography to proper manners and self-esteem, the music contains a family-friendly message that’s also a learning tool. Listeners can sing along to the lyrics, which are posted on the site, and with their parents permission can purchase any of the songs via iTunes. An additional batch of tracks will be added to the library in the coming months. “People may have heard about kids songs but they may have never heard them in this way,” says Ludacris. “It’s like urban and pop songs mixed together.”

Karma’s World also features educational games that focus on reading, writing and arithmetic. In addition to being grade specific, the content highlights a different lesson plan for teachers and tips for parents every time the site is refreshed. There’s even a “more challenging” section for young people that wish to test their brainpower with Karma’s Crosswords and Scrambled Continents games. “[Karma’s World] is just amazing and I’m extremely excited about it,” Ludacris beams. “It’s about to be a revolution.”

Just ask Otha Thornton, president-elect of the National PTA and senior vice president of business development for Capital Commercial Development Group L.L.C., a construction company. He believes in a new, impactful version of mergers and acquisitions: develop productive private–public partnerships that create an exemplary workforce to be recruited by global industry in droves. He has come to grips with the disparities of the current work environment that, if not halted, will prove to be a harbinger for the future. The black unemployment rate is 15.7% compared with just 7.6% for their white counterparts—and this nation currently has 3 million job openings in tech-related fields.

As head of the PTA at Meade Senior High School in Fort Meade, Maryland, from 2006 to 2007, Thornton forged partnerships with more than 20 businesses, including Northrop Grumman Corp., Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, and Sotech Inc., to develop initiatives to improve schools. By working with Project Lead the Way, a national provider of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) curriculum, he used professionals and entrepreneurs to fully engage students. To get a sense of the difference this engagement made, prior to 2004, Meade did not make AYP, or annual yearly progress (state benchmarks that schools and districts are expected to meet); but in 2009, Newsweek ranked Meade in the top 6% of  U.S. high schools.

For Thornton, the critical factor driving education reform is putting “the right people around the table,” and identifying business leaders who will step up big time. He says of the effectiveness of programs like Project Lead the Way: “Parents and principals were able to go to corporations and say, ‘We’d really like to partner with you to give our kids the opportunity to see the relevance of the skills needed to be potentially employed with the companies.’ [In turn], some businesses offered students scholarships and internships while others allowed employees to come to schools to talk about their roles, exposing the kids to different opportunities.”

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He’s not finished yet. At Atlanta-based Capital Commercial Development Group, he’s is designing a similar program. Recently retired from the military, Thornton, 44, deliberately sought employment with a company that had a “community- and faith-based ethos” of giving back to local schools in need. “We’re in the process of finalizing a partnering arrangement with a high school in Savannah, Georgia, that’s had some challenges. We’ll come in, talk to the students, provide insight, and talk about the soft skills—especially critical thinking—that are needed to succeed in the business community.” Thornton eventually plans to offer internships to students.

Professionals like Thornton are doing their part to close the K–12 education divide, ensuring that our next graduating classes will not exit school to unemployment lines and unproductive lives. In this final installment of our series, we take a look at the promise and progress of educational upgrades through business enterprises, community activism, and powerful partnerships.

Business Class
Now more than ever, business leaders and educators are seeking collaborative models—ranging from curriculum development to direct institutional management—that work. Major corporations have made a huge investment in schools, and contribute roughly $3.5 billion to them each year. For some companies, such activity is nothing new. Take Chicago-based Ariel Investments L.L.C. (No. 6 on the be Asset Managers List with $5.5 billion in assets under management).

Fifteen years ago, the firm founded Ariel Community Academy after being awarded corporate sponsorship of a public school through former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s New School Initiative Program. The school’s administrators targeted Chicago’s North Kenwood area, one of the city’s most underserved communities, and designed a corporate–family–school partnership that has helped make Ariel one of Chicago’s top-performing elementary schools. During the 2009–2010 school year, 89% of Ariel’s students who took state tests met or exceeded state standards, compared with 70% of students in the district. Launched with 80 students, the school now has 547 students, pre-K through grade 8. Ariel’s principal, Lennette Coleman, says, “Our school is cutting-edge because we go beyond financial literacy. We teach our students how to use money to work for them, how to invest it, how to use it entrepreneurially, and how to manage it over time. In that sense, we’re a leader.”

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Terrell Hill, founding principal of High School Inc., inspires tomorrow's insurance and finance leaders

Another successful model is Maryland Business Roundtable for Education, a coalition of more than 100 leading businesses committed to improving student achievement within the state. Executive Director June Streckfus and LaTara Harris, director of partnerships and outreach, say the organization has come a long way from its founding nearly two decades ago. In those early years, there was friction. Streckfus reflects: “Educators were saying, ‘You’re [the business community] out there critiquing us, not supporting us,’ [while] business was saying, ‘You’re not producing the core product that we need to advance our company.’”

Through trust-building and performance—more than 3,000 volunteers work with MBRT to impact nearly 50,000 middle and high school students in their classrooms each year—discord evolved into collaboration and investment. Businessman James Pitts, the corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman electronic systems, now chairs MBRT’s board. “I think we’ve moved from animosity to alignment. You can’t just put a Band-Aid on a system if there isn’t core reform going on. By ‘core reform’ I mean the raising of standards, assessments against those standards to make sure students are learning at a high level, and then accountability for teachers, students, parents, and the business community,” says Streckfus.

Another path to success for students and companies alike is providing access to quality

classroom instruction as well as on-the-job training. After four decades, INROADS still represents the nation’s largest nonprofit to prepare talented, underserved minority youth for the corporate world. In 2009, the mentorship organization, which partners with nearly 200 corporate clients, was named one of the top 10 internship programs, and has begun expanding its focus on the high school set. Executive Leadership Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Executive Leadership Council—the nation’s leading organization of senior black executives—recently awarded INROADS a $250,000 grant to launch the College Links pilot program in Washington, D.C., and Chicago.  “We’re looking for high-performing, college-bound students with leadership ability who are interested in STEM and business careers,” says Javona Braxton, INROADS’ national director of learning and development. “We want to work with them to develop their college and career goals, and to make sure they understand the link between academic success and career success. We’re preparing the pipeline of future African American members of the C-suite.”

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Organizing to Effect Change
As the school reform debate intensifies, a number of low-income minority communities don’t believe business models offer solutions for all problems. For instance, the NAACP stirred controversy after joining a lawsuit filed by the United Federation of Teachers in May to stop the New York City Department of Education from closing 22 failing institutions and locating 15 charter schools in traditional school buildings. While many scratched their heads, others were in complete agreement. Among them were members of the Coalition for Educational Justice, a community-based organization made up of diverse parents, students, educators, and community residents. Concerned that the nation’s largest school system wasn’t following proper procedures nor meeting the needs of the vast majority of students (the 96% not enrolled in charter schools), CEJ supported the lawsuit. “What needs to happen in charter schools and [traditional] public schools is no different,” says Zakiyah Ansari, a CEJ volunteer and one of the parents who signed on to the lawsuit. “If you really want sustainable transformation and change in schools, it has to [involve the] community.”

NAACP President and CEO Be

njamin Jealous maintained that the suit wasn’t about charters but about providing a quality education for all, as well as involving parents and community members in the decision-making process.

In light of movements such as Occupy Wall Street, grassroots activism among fed-up parents and communities is expected to grow. Says Ansari, a married mother of eight (four of whom are school-age) who works for the Alliance for Quality Education, a statewide advocacy group: “We want to be included in the conversation at the state, local, and district levels. That’s the only way change can be sustainable.” Ansari, who has one child in a charter school, does not oppose charters, but she’s convinced more must be done to serve traditional public school students.

She and others have been empowered by examples of communities effecting change in historically neglected school districts. For example, CEJ’s efforts led to the establishment of a success fund of nearly $30 million for middle school reform. And the Brooklyn Education Collaborative (

a precursor to the CEJ) purchasing much-needed science labs for middle and high schools in Brooklyn. AQE unites more than 230 organizations tied to parents, teachers, clergy, and others who have been able to expand pre-kindergarten projects, create school-based literacy initiatives, and avoid educational cuts as part of the state’s deficit reduction plans. Other such community organizations are becoming a force in Austin, Texas; Chicago; Los Angeles; Miami; Milwaukee, and other cities across the nation.

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Kevin Chavous, board chair of Black Alliance for Educational Options and a former Washington, D.C., councilman, says “our educational house is on fire,” and that the traditional school system was not designed for success in this era. “Poverty, family challenges, technological advances, etc., have all helped to create far too much diversity of need and interest for a top-down approach,” he says. “The traditional school system as it is stifles creativity and innovation. It isn’t responsive to new practices and teaching modalities involving technology.”

Chavous, who helped oversee development of the charter school movement in the nation’s capital and pushes for strong charter school laws nationally, says “Power needs to be with parents. Parents need to be advocates for their children, and have a sense of their own empowerment.”

BAEO provides a range of parent advocacy workshops, one of which teaches parents to work with others to reduce the number of black boys between the ages of 10 and 14 who are routinely suspended more than children from other races for minor infractions such as cellphone use. “It’s important for parents to be trained and to train their peers,” he says. “There’s less reception to people who are parachuted in.”

Connecting the Dots
Bringing together business leaders, community members, dedicated educators, and administrators will go a long way toward fixing our schools. With 116 chapters worldwide, 100 Black Men has been one of the organizations that has served as a mobilizing force. Recent conferences have assembled these diverse groups to discuss charter school development, STEM training for teachers, school choice, and parental engagement. And it walks the walk by providing a range of student services nationwide such as scholarships, summer academies, and college prep programs, among others.

“The things that the 100 are doing are in total concert with the Obama administration’s education agenda,” says David Brand, also of 100 Black Men. He notes that, “Charter schools are very open to having relationships with businesses, as are other high-performing schools run by African American churches and Catholic churches.”

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Several chapters have opened their own high-performing charter schools, for example 100 Black Men of Memphis opened the Memphis Academy for Health Sciences; the Las Vegas chapter, in partnership with Imagine Schools, opened Imagine 100 Academy of Excellence;  and 100 Black Men of Atlanta, in partnership with the Atlanta Public Schools system, opened the Business Engineering Science Technology (B.E.S.T.) Academy and the New York chapter’s   Eagle Academy prepares students for college. To achieve these goals, 100 Black Men has received support from black entrepreneurs, as well as corporate and philanthropic leviathans such as Walmart and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Giving young African American men—the organization’s primary focus—a fair shake requires mentorship and, in many cases, addressing issues related to poverty and inadequate resources. For example, members have identified misdiagnoses of learning disabilities, malnutrition, and lack of access to affordable healthcare.

Chairman Albert E. Dotson believes success will ultimately come through the organization’s approach of “mentoring the 100 way across a lifetime” rather than making temporary connections with at-risk youth. “We don’t just enter a young person’s life and then come out because we think that can sometimes do more harm than good. It’s all about a sustained and sustainable relationship,” he says. “We focus on youth mentoring and believe the young people we mentor must not only be prepared to continue their education, but must be capable of participating in the economic fabric of our country.” 

By Robin White Goode and Dale Coachman

(Image: ThinkStock)

Before the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers have even been gobbled up, the big announcement came that retailers just enjoyed their “biggest Black Friday ever!” Rather than hit the gym to work off those yummy candied yams and pies (pecan, apple, sweet potato… Oh, my!), Americans raced to…. the malls! Or, they just sat back at home, scratched their full bellies, and chugged antacids as they shopped online, getting their Cyber Monday fix on early. The final tally? More than $50 billion in total sales for the “holiday” weekend, up from $45 billion last year!

Major network news correspondents, otherwise credible financial analysts, and so-called money-honeys of all genders, sizes and hues, treated this bit of shopping trivia like it was a great big Christmas present! Despite still outsized unemployment, foreclosure, homelessness, and national debt statistics, legitimate journalists actually posed the question: “Does this mean our economy is finally turning around?”

I love Christmas (and a killer sale) as much as anybody, and I hate to be a Scrooge, but bah, humbug, and let’s be serious, folks! The fact that 227 million of us opted to go out and shop the day after Thanksgiving (and the day after that, and the day after that…) is an indicator of little else other than the fact that it’s what we’ve been successfully conditioned to do—even in the face of crisis. In fact, especially in the face of a crisis!

After all, isn’t that exactly what we were urged to do by none other than then-president George W. Bush in the immediate aftermath of 9/11? He didn’t suggest that we batten down our financial hatches in preparation for the colossal war bill we’d be facing, or that we collect goods from our already overflowing closets and cupboards to help sustain those with less in our communities, or to send to troops and their families. No. He said, go out and shop!

And we did.

Then, we kept on doing it. For the last decade, we have spent money and racked up debt at record levels—and why wouldn’t we when at every turn, when the economy has stalled, disaster has loomed, and the so-called great financial minds of the world are thoroughly stumped, they say the same thing: Go shopping.

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(Image: ThinkStock)

This message has been so consistent and all-consuming, that holidays from the most pedantic (President’s Days) to the most frivolous (Halloween) to the once most holy (Easter) have become little more than consumer-fests. And technology has taken this all over the top. Forget store catalogs and paper sales circulars; retailers begin their constant assault of sales promos in October and they don’t stop until the holiday clearance racks have been emptied in mid-January. My email inbox overflows with them, as does my phone, which delivers no fewer than three texts a day with “special” sales codes and “exclusive” deals. There is no avoiding it, or the mark it leaves on you whether in the time it takes to view and delete items, or the I’ve-gotta-have-it desire to not miss a grand shopping opportunity. For better or worse, the retailers approach works!

So, I got to thinking, what if we were able to duplicate their very successful strategies in the areas of our lives that truly need improvement? Those areas that wouldn’t just benefit us individually, but collectively, as communities and as a nation? Here are a few ideas that quickly came to mind:

• Education: What if all private schools from nursery through college offered a buy-one-get-one-free deal so that if you pay full price for one child to attend, the next child goes for nothing? You’d get four diplomas for the price of two, six for the price of three and so on. It would encourage family unity and institutional loyalty, and it would enable more families to educate multiple children without breaking the bank.
• Volunteerism: The point of volunteering is, of course, to give of your time for giving’s sake. But what if we incentivized things like teaching prison inmates to read, leading fun activities at eldercare centers, or maintaining community gardens and parks? What if for every 20 hours a month you spent donating your time and talents to the betterment of your community you received an income tax rebate or a post-graduate tuition discount or a gift card for a free checkup that you could use yourself or re-gift to someone who has no healthcare insurance?
• Health: Ever watch The Biggest Loser? It’s incredibly inspiring to witness the morbidly obese overcome years (in some cases, lifetimes) of poor eating and exercise choices and towering self-doubt in a 13-week television season. But let’s be clear about their motivation: Cold, hard cash. One of the greatest cripplers of our economy are our nation’s healthcare costs and they keep climbing higher, as all that ails us keeps getting worse, even as we live longer. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to actually pay people to get healthy? The looming threat of stroke, heart disease, disability and premature death if you don’t get healthy has made little impact. But what if you received a text today guaranteeing you an actual cash prize if you did get healthy? How much would it take for you to make some key changes in your lifestyle? Probably less than you think.

I could go on, but you get the idea. A great education accessible to the masses, stronger, more interactive communities, better physical and emotional health, these are truly the gifts that keep on giving. We just need a better marketing plan—and maybe a few cash incentives—to get the message across. We could start by putting the Thanks back in Thanksgiving. Clearly, we’ve got the giving—and getting at a bargain—part down.

Yours truly, Caroline Clarke, posing for graduation

I just went to my high school reunion and I actually had fun. Why am I surprised? Because, in the realm of conflicting emotions, my feelings about school reunions rank way up there.

With family reunions, I’m all in, volunteering to host and help organize, wearing the T-shirt Uncle Bubba designed, jumping up to get the Slide started (Electric, Cha-Cha, Step, Wobble… you name it), and rallying the little kids to entertain and love up on their elders—especially the toothless ones. But revisiting folks from the good old alma mater? Not so much.

Maybe my resistance has to do with the kinds of schools I attended. My graduate program was one-year long. Ten months to be exact; that’s how long it took to earn a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. Was it an intense 10 months? Unbelievably! Did I have good times and make great friends? Absolutely, and a few have even stayed close through the years. But it was such a brief moment in time, at the end of which we all dove into careers and the pursuit of real adulthood, that I’ve never gone back. Not once. Maybe I will this year (of course, I’ve said that every year).

My undergraduate school, Smith College, was also atypical. It was all women, mostly White, and while I got an exceptional education, am a very proud alumnus, and avid supporter of the school, I was deeply conflicted about it as a student. In fact, I spent my junior year at Spelman College and that still stands out as not only my best college year, but also one of the best years of my life. So, while I’ve visited Smith for many reasons since graduating, I’ve attended only one Smith reunion.

Then there’s high school. Bronx High School of Science is, as its name implies, specialized, emphasizing not only the sciences, but also high level academics in general. We had no football team, no pep rallies, and no School Spirit Day. We passed a test to gain admittance, so kids came from all over New York City, not from one neighborhood where we’d all gone to elementary school together or where we could all hang out on Friday nights. We were a diverse collection of teenagers more than 800 strong (in my class alone) who endured rigorous classes and enjoyed reputations for being smart. We had a prom, but only a small fraction of the class attended; my Black classmates and I gathered at Bentley’s, a Black club in Manhattan, instead.

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So I’ve never found high school class reunion invitations to be all that inviting. I attended our first one and skipped the next few. By the time this latest invitation arrived, though, I was ready to take the trip back down memory lane, and I’m glad I did. But there are a few things about reunions that still give me pause. To be clear, they are my problems to fix (or make peace with). In no particular order, here are the big three:

• Making an Entrance: Few things are as uncomfortable as walking into a room full of people you haven’t seen in years. You’ve changed, they’ve changed. Are you going to remember anybody? Will anybody remember you? Did anybody you knew back in the day even show up? Will you be able to spot them in a crowd, 10 or 20 or (gulp!) 30 years later? Happily, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites have helped, filling the void of time and distance by allowing you to reunite as “friends” before reunion time. Seeing pictures and catching up on each other’s lives online breaks the ice and allows you to (re)establish and nurture relationships, so that by the time you walk into that big crowd of mostly unfamiliar faces (different weight, no glasses, no hair, new hair!) it’s not a room full of strangers you once knew. But it’s still nerve-wracking.
• Name Shame: I’m one of those unfortunate souls who has trouble with names. It has nothing to do with my regard for a person; I just have lousy name recall and I feel awful about it, especially when someone bounds up to me, singing my name as if they saw me yesterday. I’ve studied name memorization tools (repeat a person’s name when you’re first introduced; associate the name with something familiar, like John with a bathroom or Grace with the hymn, Amazing Grace, etc) and I use them whenever I meet people. But none of these things work in a reunion setting where you met the people years earlier. Name tags (a reunion staple) are designed to help. But at my reunion, despite printing names in 20-point font, the tags hung on cords so long that they were too low to read (saying hello as you stare into someone’s bellybutton seemed a bit obvious). Note to reunion organizers: Stick with name tags that stick close to the face.
• Some Things Never Change: Once you get past the prerequisite of everyone sharing sanitized, highly stylized versions of their marital, family, and career status; once you’ve gotten the names and faces and personal elevator pitches out of the way, the real party begins. As folks get to chatting (and drinking—reunions always feature lots of drinking), the gossip starts, as do the rekindled romances (if only for one night), the trash talk and the soul-baring. As peoples facades, fears, and politically correct filters come down, they start to really reconnect, and not just over old times, but over shared experiences that come with moving through parallel stages in life—raising children, losing parents, vying for promotions, making tough personal and professional transitions—and this is the glue that binds through the years.

This is really the point of reuniting with anyone, isn’t it? To remind each other—and ourselves—that life is full of turning points and we may only walk side-by-side for a minute, but at the root, we’re all still deeply connected and those connections are worth having and revisiting time and again.

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