The Second Learning Community

Our second learning colloquia for Freshman Seminar was, to be perfectly honest, quite dull. It began late, with Dr. Carr passing out a checklist for all the assignment we should have completed thus far  in the class. To his surprise (but not mine), most people have not been as diligent as I have in completing the assignments. But Dr. Carr's infectious, upbeat attitude got a rise out of some people, especially when he reminded everyone that the student with the best portfolio at the end of the semester will win a prize, and divulged that the committee has considered buying the winner a new laptop.

Eventually, the lecture started. Put it this way, the topic was "Biological Anthropology Human Genre Historian". I got bored just reading it. And, no offense to Dr. Harris, the presenter, but my prejudices were not dispelled by his speech. Dr. Gary Harris is the director of Howard University's Nanoscale Science and Engineering facility. He began his lecture with a promise to not use random technical jargon to confuse and bore us. Instead, he said he intended to discuss black scientists and engineers, and their contributions to our society.

He started with a kind of tie-in with our topic for next week, Intellectual Exemplars. He gave us two exemplary men to remember. "Grandfather" Imhotep was the father of medicine and the co-author of the first medical textbook. The Greek name for him was "Apollo the physician", and to this day, whn doctors take their oath of profession, they swear to him. Cheikh Anta Diop was the founding director of the Radiocarbon Dating Lab, a historian, mathematician linguist, and author. He wrote The African Origin of Civilization.

He then launched a discussion of the condition of African Americans. He said we have lost things: our names, our way of life, our culture, our memories, our land, our independent production capacity, our control over ourselves and our institutions, our sensitivity, and worst of all, our solidarity. He then went in on how Earth is somewhere between 210 and 175 million years old, and that until about fifty million years ago, it was all one big mass (Pangea). Then, continental drift pulled the pieces apart. He told us that the maps have distorted reality, however. The North is eighteen million square miles, whereas the South is comprised of thirty-eight million square miles. The old Soviet Union is 8.7 million square miles, whereas Africa is comprised of 11.7 million square miles. Yet, the maps made it appear that the North and the Soviet Union were bigger than the South and Africa. He said our first objective is to get the map right, using a model called Peter's Projection, or the equal-area map. He reminded us of the evolutionary importance of Africa, home of the first three (of six) human forms. In fact the oldest discovered woman, "Lucy", is between two and three million years old and was from Africa.

But, he says that Africans and African Americans have made other, more recent, contributions, that have had many practical uses. He talked about the great Pyramids of Giza, and other symbols that have affected the world over. Apparently, the French built the Eiffel Tower so they would have a monument comparable to those in Africa. And African symbols are rampant in American culture: the pyramid with an eye on our dollar bill, the Rx we use to mean prescription (but is actually the symbol of Osiris). Also, at least eight black people worked on the Manhattan Project to create the atom bomb, one of which was a sixteen-year-old Ph.D. He gave examples of great inventors, like Granville Woods, who had over sixty patents, and successfully sued Thomas Edison twice for infringement on his patent rights, and Garrett Morgan who created the traffic light and the gas mask. In fact, by 1913, African Americans owned over 100 patents. He tried to make these things exciting, but it was lost on us, the audience.

In closing, he left us with a motivational speech. I have a strange aversion to motivational speakers, so this lost him favor with me. These are what he calls "The Graduation Principles":

1. Free Your Mind- he said you must believe that what you want (graduation) can happen; you cannot do what you cannot imagine.

2. Time Management- he said there are only 168 hours in a week, to part of which classes, sleep, eating, etc. already lay claim, so you must make time for studying and have rules for yourself.

3. Use All Your Resources- these include other students, teachers, textbooks, other book, the Internet, etc.

4. Use A Buddy System- he said have a friend in each class to take notes for you if you absolutely cannot make it.

5. "No Pain, No Gain"- he said that this is a one-time opportunity, and if you work hard and study hard, you will still be able to party hard.

he closed with this quote: "In this world you may not always get what you paid for, but you will certainly pay for what you get."