SAAB Organization News - 2011

Tidewater Community College SAAB Chapter, Virginia Beach, VA takes on the Japan earthquake and ensuing tsunami. The earthquake, which struck Japan March 11, claimed the lives of over 10,000 people. Along with the ensuing tsunami, these disasters are estimated to have caused over $235 billion in damages. Thousands of survivors have been left homeless, starving, and without adequate water supply for weeks. When disaster struck, members of the Student African American Brotherhood (SAAB) Virginia Beach Chapter responded with a sense of purpose and a common goal in mind "commitment to service."  Read full article . . .

Press Release: Clinton Global Initiative 2011 ~ President Clinton Announces First Clinton Global Initiative Meeting Focused on Driving Job Creation and Economic Growth in the United States and Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe was invited to the Gathering.

CGI America brought together leaders like Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe and others from business, nonprofits, and government to develop new ideas for generating jobs now in the U.S.," President Clinton said-- "CGI members have already improved the lives of more than 300 million people around the world by making nearly 2,000 commitments. More than 250 of those commitments, worth $11.6 billion, are addressing challenges in the U.S. At CGI America, the focus was on innovation and urgency to get people working again."   Read full press release . . .

Visit the Clinton Global Initiative website to learn more about Stem Education In K-12 Work Groups.

The Men and Women of Color Leadership Conference is pleased to announce that Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe (SAAB), Dr. Shaun Harper (University of Pennsylvania), Dr. Khaula Murtadha (IUPUI) and Dr. Charlie Nelms (North Carolina Central University), will be speaking at the event this year. For more info visit the conference website.

Five Leaders Recognized For Contributions To Enhancing Black Male Educational Attainment - Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe, SAAB founder/CEO received the “AAMI Best Practices Impact Award” for his leadership in creating SAAB, and for working with the University System of Georgia’s African American Male Initiative (AAMI) program to launch an expanded, eight-campus SAAB project within USG. (Pictured Mr. Errol Davis, Chancellor, USG; Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe, Founder/CEO SAAB; and Ms. Arlethia Perry-Johnson, AAMI Project Director.) Read Full Press Release . . .

Head Count - Redefining Admissions ‘Success’ for Black Males (from The Chronicle of Higher Education) Hunt Valley, Md.

Forget “access” and “admission.” High school counselors and admissions officers should think in terms of “completion” and “attainment” when dealing with students, especially black males and other underrepresented students. Read more . . .

SAAB chapter members greet one another before a meeting. access and success is aimed at increasing the number of African American and Latino men that graduate from college. OMG Center for Collaborative Learning is currently working with SAAB National Headquarters to develop the capacity for collecting data to evaluate the overall impact on SAAB participants.

SAAB Press Coverage in the Early Days: Julian Bond and Jesse Jackson

SAAB Organization News - 2010

The Student African American Brotherhood (SAAB: Building a positive peer-support community

In any given week, if you visit certain college campuses across the country, you might encounter a group of African-American and Latino male students in a meeting. At first, your attention might be drawn to the fact that each of the students is wearing a shirt and tie.

After observing the business-like manner in which the young men run their meeting, and hearing the students talk about ways to be successful, you would realize you had just observed a powerful example of what can be accomplished when young men work together to achieve their goals. For these students, the goal is to receive a college degree and continue to make their mark in the world—in the workforce or by furthering their graduate or professional education. These young men are members of the Student African American Brotherhood, or SAAB. Read More . . .

SAAB is proud to announce the launch of Student African American Sisterhood National Organization, Inc. (SAAS).

SAAS positively impacts the lives of its members through creating supportive networks among African American and Latina females, encouraging and assisting with personal and professional development, and providing strategies for educational attainment and success. Read More . . .

SAAB is cited in an interview with Tina Gridiron Smith for a Special Issue of ABFE's Black Men and Boys Initiative, September 2010.

Ms. Gridiron Smith  was asked for her insight and perspective on the movement in philanthropy and asked “What are the strategies that are working in your work around Black men and boys?; What are the successes and challenges?; and How can philanthropy be more effective in improving life outcomes for Black men and boys? What are the successes and challenges?; and How can philanthropy be more effective in improving life outcomes for Black men and boys?”  Read more . . .

Tina Gridiron Smith and Lumina View Education Gap Through Racial Lens: 

Sixty percent of Americans will have high-quality college degrees and credentials by 2025 if Lumina Foundation’s next decade and a half of grantmaking is successful. The foundation’s ambitious goal targets students of all races, but Lumina Senior Program Officer Tina Gridiron Smith says it also presents an opportunity to address the educational achievement gap between students of color and white students.  Read the full article . . .

UN (Indiana University Northwest) tops in retaining freshmen: U.S. News & World Report has ranked Indiana University Northwest at the top in terms of average freshman retention rates among public regional universities in Northwest Indiana, according to the magazine's latest annual ranking featuring America's best colleges.

IUN's average freshman retention rate was listed by U.S. News at 65 percent. This also was the highest among the IU regional campuses. Statewide, IUN had the second-highest retention rate of any public regional university. The retention rates featured by U.S. News are the average proportion of freshmen entering a university starting in fall 2005 through fall 2008, who returned to school the following fall.

"As first-year retention increases, we are confident that our students' rate of degree completion will also rise significantly," Chancellor William Lowe said.

David Malik, executive chancellor for academic affairs, credited the IUN-Ivy Tech chapter of the Student African American Brotherhood (SAAB) as a program that's helped students develop the academic and life skills necessary to succeed in college.

Summer 2010, SAAB held its Summer Bridge Academy, which brought incoming freshman and transfer students from the two schools to campus for two weeks of classes and programs designed to help them prepare for their first year of college.

In other U.S. News categories, IUN was listed as the most economically diverse of Northwest Indiana's local campuses and the sixth most economically diverse among all regional universities in the Midwest. The university tied for second locally in campus racial diversity.  August 20, 2010 - Post-Tribune Staff Report

The SAAB organization launches "SAAB Toledo Book Club"  
 

Established by Dr. Bledsoe to promote "Readership" amongst our young males of color, the SAAB Toledo Book Club is the first of SAAB Book Clubs to reach across the country through SAAB Chapters.

This new program is created based on evidence of many studies that indicates this population struggles in the area of reading. Research also shows that reading as a teen leads to success. Read full story . . .

Dr. Bledsoe pictured above with book club members from  middle and high schools in the Toledo Public School system.

SAAB Founder and Executive Director Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe was honored by the City of Toledo’s Board of Community Relations with a 2009 Youth Empowerment Award for his work with African American and Latino males. Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner said Dr. Bledsoe has dedicated “time, talent, and energy to improve the lives of the youth in our community."

SAAB is proud of its partnership with the University System of Georgia (USG) African American Male Initiative (AAMI) under the direction of Ms. Arlethia Perry-Johnson. The USG AAMI was launched in the fall of 2002 to address the recruitment, retention and graduation rates of Black males.

There are so many exciting stories that we decided to open an all new SAAB Chapter News Section just so we can cover all the activity going on around the country. Read about the exciting new Chapter additions to the SAAB Family

SAAB is extremely pleased to recognize the Toledo Public Schools (TPS) system for having the most SAAB chapters within a K-12 system. TPS has 15 SAAB chapters within their system to include (8 high schools and 7 middle schools). We are please that the TPS Superintendent and School Board fully supports our partnership and expansion project within the system.

SAAB is featured in the October 06, 2008 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education for its work with African American male students in colleges and high schools around the country. In the article entitled "Colleges Seek Key to Success of Black Men in Classroom" the need to reach out to African American men is highlighted and how SAAB’s provides a strong positive response to that need.

”The Toledo, Ohio SAAB Chapter members participated in the annual joint celebration of The City of Toledo and  The University of Toledo's 'Unity Day' honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - January, 2009. Local Channel 24 News provides video coverage and news article "Realizing Dr. King's dream through SAAB." 

SAAB Founder and Executive Director, Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe is basking in the glory of President-elect Obama, but says there is still work to be done.  "I'm challenging people to take it as a social responsibility to reach out and help those who have fallen by the wayside." By participating in service learning, SAAB's term for community service, and then we all get something back suggests Dr. Bledsoe. A thought process resonating with J.P. "You can't just sit around and think everything is going to happen. You have to get out there and do work, you have to help with your community if you want to make it a better place." There are no more excuses says Dr. Bledsoe, "I never thought there were excuses in the first place, but now I always say to my students, now you definitely don't have an excuse."  Read the Channel 24 Editorial.

July, 2008 - SAAB is honored to announce the support of a $725,000 grant received from the Lumina Foundation for Education to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the SAAB program. SAAB will be partnering with the OMG Center for Collaborative Learning, a non-profit consulting firm based in Philadelphia, to conduct the evaluation. OMG will partner with SAAB to build a system to evaluate the program’s effectiveness. OMG will evaluate the program’s impact on college access and student success in its chapters and work with SAAB to increase its capacity to collect data for the assessment of program effectiveness on an ongoing basis. “An evaluation system will provide us with critical data to help us understand our program’s effectiveness” says Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe, SAAB’s founder and executive director. “Armed with that understanding, we can make more informed decisions about programming and chapter work and can share the results of the SAAB work with stakeholders, such as funders, universities and other key partners, and researchers in the field.”  For more information, contact Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe at 419.530.3221 or tbledsoe@saabnational.org. 

SAAB University of Toledo - Ohio Chapter was featured for it's outstanding work in the latest DiverseEducation.com article, SAAB tackling the Black, Brown Male Crisis.

SAAB is proud to continue its recognition of its partnership with the South Metropolitan Higher Education Consortium (SMHEC) for launching  seven (7) new individual institutional SAAB chapters throughout the greater Chicago area. The SMHEC continues to work toward a regional approach in addressing the achievement gaps for African American and Latino males. Seven of its 15-member institutions have agreed to form SAAB chapters on their respective campuses to include Governors State University, Prairie State College, Kankakee Community College, University of Saint Francis, Joliet Junior College, Northwest Business College and South Suburban College. The SMHEC has a diverse membership with institutions to include 2-year, 4-year, private and public in nature.

SAAB recognizes its founder, Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe, for being selected by the Ashoka Organization as one of the leading social innovators in the world. Ashoka is a global association of leading social entrepreneurs---men and women with innovative and practical ideas for addressing the most urgent social problems in the world. Since its founding in 1980, Ashoka has provided start-up financing, professional support services, and connection to a global peer network for more than 1800 leading social entrepreneurs in over 60 countries. Dr. Bledsoe is 1 of only 16 Ashoka fellows chosen from the United States this year and was officially inducted at a ceremony hosted by Google in San Jose, California, held on November 14, 2006.

SAAB congratulates Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe for being recognized by the Northwest Black Media Association (NBMA) of Ohio at the annual NBMA banquet held May 11, 2007, for his service (through SAAB) in the community locally, regionally and nationally.

SAAB is proud to announce the continued support from the Lumina Foundation for Education for its continued support and commitment to our shared mission by their recent grant of $750,000 to the Indiana University System to expand SAAB throughout the state of Indiana. SAAB looks forward to working with the Lumina Foundation and the Indiana University System to address the low rates of high school and postsecondary persistence and graduation rates of African American males in the state of Indiana. The Indiana Expansion Project will kick-off during the 2007-08 school year. Stay tuned for more updates about this initiative. For more information on the Lumina Foundation, please visit www.luminafoundation.org.