Author: kevin

Buffalo Wild Wings Franchise owner Karim Webb talks about the recent racial discrimination claims against Buffalo Wild Wings and how it affects black owners of the franchise.

The second edition of the Cincinnati Black Restaurant week has commenced.

The event is scheduled to hold from Nov. 18 to Nov. 24 and will showcase 24 black-owned restaurants in the Cincinnati area, such as Ollie Trolley’s, Island Frydays, Conscious Kitchen and Sweet Petit.

Each restaurant will offer a discount on specific menus as well as specials. The event is organized by the Urban Young Professionals of Greater Southwestern Ohio and Cincy Soul.

To participate in the event, you can visit the Urban League’s website for more information.

Dwyane Wade, a former Miami Heat basketball player, has started a sock line.
His sock line, PKWY, was conceived way back in 2013 and is now available in major stores across the country. Dwayne co-founded the company with stance, and they have both been working together since 2013 when he became the first NBA player to represent the company and co-founded an existing collection that bears his name. Dwayne is hopeful that the new enterprise will be a turning point to their brand. PKWY was unveiled in February of 2018.

Dwayne stated on the PKWY website, “We don’t just make socks, we make true colors. New collections to reveal the uniqueness of your voice. New styles to amplify the passion in your heart. The world is full of expression, so don’t be afraid to put it out there. What you believe can unite us in our diversity, if it can inspire us through our differences. It can elevate us through our uniqueness. Because it all belongs on your sleeve … or your feet … or your anywhere

Dwayne retired from basketball this year. In his playing days, he won three NBA championship; in the years 2006, 2012, and 2013 and for 12-times, he was listed in NBA All-Star selection. Three years after joining the team, he led the team to Miami’s first-ever NBA Championship in 2006 and was also named Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the finals. In 2004, he launched the Wade’s World Foundation. The foundation aims to give assistance to programs centered on health, family service, and education, especially those in underserved communities of Miami and his hood in Chicago. He was appointed to Obama’s Fatherhood Task Force in September of 2012. He has become a New York Times bestselling author after he released his first book in 2012. The title of the book is “A FATHER FIRST: How my life Became Bigger than Basketball.”

Morehouse College, Prairie View A&M University & Spelman College Receive $3M in Grants from Carnegie, Mellon and Rockefeller Foundations to Support Faculty Development

Morehouse College, Prairie View A&M University and Spelman College announced today that they are the recipients of $3 million in grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Rockefeller Foundation, and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support the development of faculty on their campuses. Excellence and student success at historically Black colleges and universities rely on pedagogically innovative, research-active and creative faculty who provide students with the tools that enable them to take responsibility for their learning. The grants allow the colleges to provide an array of faculty support structures and require the three institutions to share best practices with each other and with the broader HBCU community.

Prairie View received $1 million from Mellon. Carnegie awarded $1 million to Morehouse and $500,000 to Spelman, which also received $500,000 from Rockefeller.

“Faculty are the heart of a liberal arts education. At historically Black colleges and universities, heavy teaching loads often get in the way of professional development, time for research and/or creative production. Yet, time for these activities not only keeps faculty current in their fields but provides undergraduate research opportunities for our students,” said Mary Schmidt Campbell, Ph.D., president of Spelman. “We are grateful for the foresight of the Carnegie, Rockefeller and Mellon foundations in making this historic gift to Spelman, Morehouse and Prairie View. We anticipate using a portion of the funds as well to document and disseminate the innovative teaching strategies that have accounted for the academic success of Spelman students.”

Leveraging History

Over their histories, HBCUs like these three institutions have engaged high-quality faculty, who are attracted to their unique institutional missions to educate talented, hardworking minority student populations. In the last decade or so, however, despite the growing need to educate more underrepresented minorities who comprise a larger portion of the college-age population, market pressures have made it increasingly difficult for HBCUs to recruit top faculty and support their development after hire. The foundations’ critical support of these new faculty development programs leverages these institutions’ history of success preparing scholars and leaders of African descent for lives of impact and meaning.

“Our founder Andrew Carnegie was concerned about the lack of educational opportunities for African Americans. As a result, in 1900 he made a grant of $20,000 to Tuskegee University to fund the construction of its library, the first of 13 grants to the institution,” said Vartan Gregorian, Ph.D., president of Carnegie. “Throughout its history, Carnegie Corporation of New York has continued to invest in a range of organizations serving African Americans, including historically Black colleges and universities, civil rights organizations, the National Urban League since 1921, the United Negro College Fund since 1946, as well as more recent grants to support reforms in K-12 and higher education. We are pleased to help ensure the future health and welfare of the faculties of our country’s HBCUs through these latest grants to Morehouse and Spelman colleges.”

Expanding Development

The colleges’ plans to deepen and expand faculty development through the generous grants from the foundations support the institutions’ innovative and effective teaching, excellent academic outcomes, robust research and creative activity.

Morehouse College: Morehouse will use the grant funds to support the new program, Modeling 21st Century Faculty Development at HBCUs. The program will help to make the college more competitive in attracting and retaining top talent by providing funds for start-up packages and robust opportunities for faculty growth and development. Morehouse also plans to reduce the teaching loads of existing faculty and provide support at critical stages of the faculty’s developmental life cycle.

In addition, grant funds will be used to increase faculty research productivity by providing sabbaticals, seed funding, and workshops to enhance the effort. Success of the grant program at Morehouse will be documented using metrics such as the number of faculty applying for full professorships, applications received for posted job openings, credit hours taught, faculty satisfaction, and the frequency of grant and manuscript submissions. This program will allow Morehouse to continue its tradition of excellence in the 21st century and beyond.

“On behalf of the Morehouse College community, I would like to thank the Carnegie Corporation of New York for supporting our efforts to recruit top educators to the classrooms of Morehouse,” said David A. Thomas, Ph.D., president of Morehouse. “Our mission to develop men who are academically excellent and committed to leadership and service can only be realized if the education that we offer is taught by professors who are innovators in their fields and are dedicated to helping our scholars to succeed.”

Prairie View A&M University: Over the past several years, Prairie View has made faculty development a top priority. Reducing teaching loads, creating avenues for faculty to attain tenure and opening more tenure track opportunities have been hallmarks of the institutional plan. Prairie View will use the generous funding from Mellon to continue enhancing the ranks of its faculty by identifying effective practices in faculty recruitment, advancement and retention. Additionally, the funds will support the establishment of a Center for Faculty Excellence that will track and monitor scholarly output and professional engagement across the spectrum of academic programs.

“The single most important indicator of a successful university is its faculty. If historically Black colleges and universities wish to compete on a global level for top students, grant funding, awards and recognition, we must pay particular attention to how we recruit, develop and retain highly qualified faculty,” said Ruth J. Simmons, Ph.D., president of Prairie View. I am grateful to the Mellon Foundation for providing Prairie View with the funding to do this critical work and I look forward to sharing our findings for best practices across the HBCU landscape.

“The Mellon Foundation enthusiastically recognizes Ruth Simmons’ wise, visionary leadership with a grant to Prairie View A&M that will help ensure that the school’s top faculty are fully supported in their long-term professional development,” said Elizabeth Alexander, president of Mellon. As the largest funder of the arts and humanities in higher education in the U.S., Mellon has a long-standing record of supporting excellence, diversity, inclusion, and access in its grantmaking programs, and since its earliest years, has consistently supported HBCUs.

Spelman College: Academic excellence requires faculty excellence. The Carnegie and Rockefeller grants enable Spelman to provide enhanced support to its excellent faculty by investing in their continuing development as teachers and scholars. Specifically, the grant supports faculty plans to grow the curriculum in areas of emerging importance and nurtures their trajectories as leaders on campus and in their respective fields.

Spelman’s strategic plan identifies faculty as “The Spelman Difference” because the college’s distinguished and dedicated faculty are the drivers of student success. These generous grants will enable Spelman to expand our support of our faculty and to share with Morehouse and Prairie View what is learned over the next five years about the strategies that work to recruit and retain excellent faculty in an era of heightened market competition.

Spelman will use the funds to support faculty success, recruitment and retention efforts through the awarding of “Distinguished Scholar/Maker” grants and course-release funding for academic departments, seed grants to develop curriculum in emerging areas like data science and analytics, research grants for global learning and accessing international archives, furthering strategic partnerships that advance faculty research and grantsmanship training for junior and mid-career faculty.

The funding will allow Spelman to create a sustainable action plan for development, and host off-campus writer/maker retreats for faculty to focus on scholarly and creative endeavors common to the academy, including complete books, book proposals, articles, manuscripts and screenplays. Spelman will also use the awards to gain membership in the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity for professional development, training and mentoring through the organization, which has a proven record of success in improving productivity.

“The Rockefeller Foundation is proud to support this effort to ensure historically Black colleges and universities continue to thrive and promote equal opportunity and academic excellence to its diverse community of scholars and alumni,” said Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, president of Rockefeller. “This mission is as important now as it was when John D. Rockefeller Sr. and Laura Spelman Rockefeller first committed resources to Spelman College in 1882. Today, we honor their legacy with a grant to support the development of the next generation of women leaders at Spelman.”

Morehouse, Prairie View and Spelman will participate in a “shared lessons convening” every other year to inform best practices and amply the benefits of the faculty support efforts.

Supporting Advancement

Increasing the number of full professors has been an ongoing focus of HBCU leadership nationwide for decades. Some of the major work happening in this area includes the training provided by The HBCU Faculty Development Network and the Faculty Career Enhancement Program, a partnership between the United Negro College Fund and Mellon. The Network empowers faculty with the tools to promote effective teaching and learning practices that will enable students to become engaged, lifelong learners, while the Career Enhancement Program helps HBCUs that are UNCF members to attract, support and re-train faculty in the social sciences and humanities through professional development and career enhancement initiatives.

The generous support from Carnegie, Mellon and Rockefeller foundations will allow Morehouse, Prairie View and Spelman to build upon these efforts with their plans for faculty development.

Hakeem Seriki, aka “Chamillionaire,” has launched a competition that is worth $100,000. The competition aims to help black-owned start-ups get funding for their businesses.

The competition has started and will run through December 6th, 2019. To participate in the contest, start-ups would download Convoz (an app and social video conversation platform founded by Chamillionaire last year) from either the iOS or Android platform.

After launching the app, candidates clicked on the banner at the top of the home feed to view the details and rules of the contest.

The rapper turned black entrepreneur who hails from Texas has shortlisted the persons that will help him to select the winner of the competition. The list includes investor and West Coast rapper Earl T. “E-40” Stevens, FUBU’s Daymond John, and equity investing platform Republic.

Earlier in the year, Hakeem had a competition for minority-founded start-ups, at the end of which he invested $10,000 in the winner.

The second phase of the contest saw him (Chamillionaire), E-40, and Republic collaborating to give a minority or woman-founded start-up $25,000. The competition was also announced on the Convoz app.

Even though more than 50 percent of the people living in Over-The-Rhine (OTR) are Black-Americans, still only 8 percent of the thriving business in the area is black-owned.

The OTR Chamber of Commerce will be disbursing $20,000 grant to black-owned businesses that will reside in the area, to reduce the gap by 2020. The aid aims to encourage black entrepreneurs who have the zeal to work and contribute to the community.

Part of the requirement for prospective applicants includes; willingness to sign a lease of space in the neighborhood for at least three years, working hours of at least 5o hours per week, and becoming a member of the Over-the-Rhine Chamber of Commerce. Other requirements can be retrieved online.

The winner(s) of the grant will be announced in January.

Fitinuss LLC has concluded talks with Atlanta based ReKindness LLC in a bid to acquire its iOS app SWAP club. Upon acquisition, by early 2020, Fitinuss also plans to make the app available on the Android platform and also create website functionality for the app.

Fitinuss LLC is one of the top black-owned fitness companies in the U.S, based in Gadsden, Alabama and was founded by the duo of Demarcus Thornton and James Densmore II in 2016.

Fitinuss LLC produces and sells fitness facilities and has it distribution network across the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. Their fitness centers are located in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi.
Fitinuss aims to use the acquisition of SWAP Club iOS app to increase its list of business and use it infrastructure to increase the membership strength of the SWAP Club community.

Co-founder of ReKindness, Bryan Kindland, stated that Fitinuss would maintain the current technology of SWAP Club as well as its name, but it is now entirely owned by Fitinuss LLC. The terms of the agreement were not made public.

One of the largest black banks in the country has grown after an acquisition announced Thursday merged two the branches of the institution in New Jersey and one in Harlem.

The Industrial Bank, which is based in Washington D.C., was founded in 1934 and has acquired the New Jersey’s City National Bank after being closed down on November 1 by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The company now has three new branches after acquiring the black bank.

The Industrial Bank’s president and CEO B. Doyle Mitchell, Jr. in an official statement released on Thursday, said: “This acquisition will allow us to expand our footprint into the northeast region and deepen our commitment to impacting economic development in various communities,”
The company said in a recent press release that the Industrial Bank and the City National Bank are alike in that it was beginning “to fill a great economic void within the African American community whose access to credit and banking services was historically limited.”

According to the press release by the Industrial Bank, it claims that the company invests back into the community more than 60 percent of its assets each year and works to support community programs.

The OCC said in a press release that it took action of closing the New Jersey’s City National Bank because “after finding that the bank had experienced substantial dissipation of assets and earnings due to unsafe or unsound practices.”

The office also states that “The OCC also found that the bank was undercapitalized and failed to submit a capital restoration plan acceptable to the OCC.”

The bankrupt company has stated on its website that all deposit accounts, including contracted deposits, have been transferred to Industrial Bank, which has already welcomed City National Bank customers on its website.

The first black-owned dentistry opened last month, in Earlsfield, South West London. Dove Dental and Well-being Spa was named after the Dove Family. The dentistry practice has been part of the family for 35 years since it was established by the father of the current managing director.

Dove Dental and Well-being Spa is now opened to both new and its old patient, after undergoing complete revamp with cutting-edge facilities.

Below is an interview with the managing director of Dove Dental and Well-being, Kay Dove and principal dentists Dr. Kevin Dapaah and Dr. Jamal Johnston. The trio talks about how the company intends to give back to the community and help the next generation of black business owners and particularly dentistry professionals.

Chris Goode, the CEO and founder of Ruby Jean’s Juicery, makes history as one of the first black-owned stores to be incorporated into a major store. Ruby Jean’s Juicery is a juice bar that promotes juice cleansing. The juice store has now opened a site at Whole Foods in Kansas City, Missouri.

Goode attributes his achievement to his late grandmother Ruby Jean, whose name he gave the business, mainly because the business inspiration originated from her state of health. According to a report, a friend of Goode informed him about juice purification, a kind of detox diet in which a person consumes fruit and vegetable juices and thus improves their digestive system.

Goode thought this diet would have benefited his grandmother and that her death at the age of 61 from type 2 diabetes may have been prevented. Goode felt that if she understood the importance of eating healthily, she would not have to suffer.

He now encourages his family to maintain the healthy lifestyle he wanted for his grandmother.

His first juice bar, launched in 2015 in Kansas City, is rated as Missouri’s best juices. In a short while, Whole Foods learnt of Goode’s success and offered him a supply contract, alongside a brick-and-mortar store in their mall. In addition to cold-pressed juices, Ruby Jean’s Juice also sells healthy breakfast and lunch meals for potential customers.

Goode hopes to use the store to inspire more people by telling his grandmother’s story about the necessity of healthy eating and long life.