There are individuals in Detroit who have taken their place in the pantheon of next-generation leadership. These men and women have an abundance of grace, appreciation, selflessness and humility. They have a self-discipline that equips them to be tough in the face of tough challenges. Their courage and deep and abiding sense of doing what is right have positioned them to be influential figures in our community for years to come.

Rev. D. Alexander Bullock, Rev. Charles E. Williams III and Donnell White all fit this profile. Each one talks with animated delight about their role as up-and-coming leaders in the community, as well as the simple doctrine that binds them: the need for leadership to serve as a vital component to a thriving and prosperous community.

It is easy to look at these three gentlemen and conclude that the future of the community is in good hands. They are all passionate and engaged individuals eager to make a difference. That desire to make a difference in the lives of others is what drives them.

“The noblest motive is the public good,” Donnell White said. White, 36, is the executive director of the Detroit chapter of the NAACP. “If we as leaders can subscribe to that notion, we’d be better off as a community.”

White’s involvement in the NAACP’s largest chapter can be traced back to when he began volunteering. Both his mother and brother were active in the chapter, which made his decision to participate an easy one. After demonstrating an unwavering dedication as a volunteer to the cause of fighting for justice, White became an administrative assistant with the NAACP, followed soon by appointments to deputy director and his current position as executive director.

While some may look at leadership as a complex matrix of demanding procedures, White has a more simplistic viewpoint.

“Leaders have only one responsibility, and that’s to lead,” he said. “Our community is looking for leaders who are ready to lead — and not just our elected officials. Our religious leaders, our business leaders and our community leaders — we all have to play a role.”

One of the unique details of White’s position is his self-described “tweener’ status. He said many view him as not quite the young adult he used to be, and not yet as seasoned as he will be. Instead, he is somewhere in the middle, or a tweener. “My contribution is being a bridge between those two groups. Ultimately, though, being a leader is about being able to deliver.”

Rev. Williams often leans on the words of Mahatma Gandhi for a dose of fortitude: “You must be the change that you want to see.” Rev. Williams, 31, is the pastor at the Historic King Solomon Baptist Church and president of the National Action Network in Detroit. He first became engaged in the social movement while a student at Eastern Michigan University, when the affirmative action battle on college admission surfaced in 2006. He was one of the leading voices on campus against what was labeled Proposition 2, and it was the attention he garnered from that experience that led him to meet with Rev. Horace Sheffield of Detroit.

Rev. Sheffield later asked him to become the youth and college director for the National Action Network. He accepted the role soon thereafter and was eventually appointed to president of the National Action Network in Detroit.
“I speak for the least, the lost and the left out,” he said. “I cannot allow folks to be taken advantage of. When I see issues that need leadership, I’m there. I think that’s what people are looking for —passionate voices around issues they care about the most.”

“If I look around and don’t see someone speaking out on an issue, then what am I going to do? Do I hide and do nothing? Or do I seek to try to education, agitate and mobilize people around the issue at hand? That’s my approach.”

Interestingly enough, Rev. Bullock, 35, also looks to another word besides leadership to describe his social justice pursuits. The senior pastor astor of Greater St. Matthew Baptist Church in Highland Park and the state coordinator and president of Rainbow Push’s Detroit chapter says he sees himself as a servant and an advocate.

“Although I do have a leadership role in the faith-based community, I see myself more as an advocate than a leader. I see myself as someone who tries to speak to the issues, someone who tries to raise awareness and consciousness of our citizens, someone who tries to fight back against the rising tide of apathy in our community.”

Rev. Bullock describes himself as part preacher, part teacher and all activist. This “triple threat” of social progressiveness prompts many to label Rev. Bullock a modern day renaissance man. He has always maintained a razor-sharp focus on preparing himself to become one of the community’s change agents.

That focus started while in school. From the third to the eighth grade, he was taught at his parents’ organized religious school. He eventually went on to graduate from Morehouse College in 1998 with a degree in philosophy, and later matriculated through Wayne State University to earn his Masters of Arts in philosophy — all by the age of 22.

Rev. Bullock was a college professor for 10 years in both Michigan and Illinois. He was called to the church in 2007 and to advocacy work in 2009, when he worked with the Highland Park chapter of the NAACP. While in the midst of the everyday fight for justice with the NAACP, he met with Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. who asked him to carry the mantle of social justice for Rainbow Push in Michigan.

Rev. Bullock fully understands how important his role is in the continued development of our community. But he says that responsibility is not his — or Donnell White’s or Rev. Williams’ — alone. “We’re all leaders,” he said. “We’re all called to leadership. But we as a community have to believe in and embrace our own potential as ordinary people to do extraordinary things in the world we live in. I advocate for ordinary peoples’ ability to not give in to the darkness, but to fight back.”

While each of these three emerging leaders may have somewhat alternate definitions of the word leadership, the commonality they share is one of elevating the community one person at a time.
 

The 40th annual Noel Night will take place on Saturday, December 1st, 2012, from 5:00pm-9:30pm in Midtown Detroit's Cultural Center Area. Over 60 Midtown venues, including the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, the Detroit Historical Museum, and the Detroit Public Library, amongst many others, open their doors to the public FREE of CHARGE during this Cultural Center-wide holiday "open house." Activities include horse-drawn carriage rides, holiday shopping, family craft activities and performances by over 120 area music, theatre, and dance groups. The evening's festivities culminate with a community sing-along on Woodward Avenue led by the Salvation Army Band — a long-standing Noel Night tradition.
Noel Night activities take place in and around Midtown Detroit's Cultural Center institutions, primarily between Cass and John R and Kirby and Willis. Free shuttle service is offered between participating venues. Convenient parking is available in area lots. Noel Night is produced by Midtown Detroit, Inc., a nonprofit community development organization that supports economic growth in Detroit's Midtown district.

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Sandra O. Kent is the new National President of Carats Inc, founded in 1973. The social organization is comprised of professional women of 15 states. The National President has responsibility for maintaining policy, planning, community relationships through the Board of Directors.

Carats pledge to be charming individuals who are dedicated to active involvement in their community organizations. Carats are known to have grand social events and support a sisterhood of lasting and enduring friendships.

Wayne County Community College District, under Chancellor Curtis Ivery, is rolling out the latest of a series of new student service programs precisely where many of its more than 72,000 students look first — their smartphones and other mobile devices.

The new online service will allow current and prospective students, parents, community and staff to find accurate answers to questions about WCCCD or financial aid through an interactive question and answer tool. More expansive than “Frequently Asked Questions” and more targeted than online search tools, the new tool provides specific answers to questions through an extensive video library and smart operating software.

Students simply plug in a question, and software scours video transcripts to find related terms, delivering an exact match to the query within seconds, whether the student is working on a computer or a smartphone. Trying to navigate the federal financial aid system? There’s video for that. Want to know how the campus bookstore operates? There’s one for that too. Even subjects such as financial literacy are covered in the series.

The idea, said WCCCD District Dean of Student Services Mawine Diggs, was to get accurate administrative and financial aid information in the hands of students precisely when they needed it so that they could focus on achieving their goals, instead of paperwork.

“Our goal is to help everyone who comes through our doors create a better life,” Diggs said. “Providing accurate information and the most efficient service possible only helps them, and us, realize that goal.” The new online self-service tool is the latest in a series of student service initiatives the District has rolled out during the past 18 months as student enrollment has increased to nearly 73,000 credit and non-credit students.

The District Financial Aid Department recently launched an initiative to transition into “paperless processing”. The implementation of the Banner Document Management Suite (commonly known as Xtender) allows the department to collect, process, and store financial aid documentation electronically and link it directly to student accounts. “This has provided a more streamlined and efficient financial aid process which ultimately delivers better customer service to our students,” said WCCCD Executive District Director of Financial Aid Tamara Pruitt. Students also have the luxury of submitting their forms online through our website from their laptops, tablets and smart phones, Pruitt said.

The District last year introduced its Student Solutions Team, Financial Aid Hotline. The Student Solutions Team visits each of the District’s five campuses weekly to provide a face-to-face, one-stop option for students to get financial aid and administrative information, as well as help finding that information online. District call centers were expanded to provide fast information on financial aid and things like book vouchers to students who called the District hotline, and information about both was distributed across campuses through a steady stream of emails, newsletters and banners. Additionally, the District has hosted two Financial Aid Marathons this year which have provided students with one-on-one engagement opportunities with District Financial Aid personnel in the completion, submission and processing of financial aid documents.

“The goal is not only to make sure students can access the information they need in ways that are comfortable to them but to also ensure successful guidance through the financial aid process from start to finish,” said WCCCD District Dean of Student Services Mawine Diggs. “Whether they feel more comfortable sitting across the table from an advisor or dialing a hotline number or watching a video on their smartphone – we want to make sure we’re helping them navigate the college experience in ways that help ensure their success.”

Another benefit of the new array of services the District anticipates is lower call volumes to its financial aid and administrative offices, freeing staff to spend more time with students who need extra resources or unique situations. WCCCD is the largest urban community college district in the state with the goal of continuously expanding the reach of its administrators through the use of innovative technologies and person centered approaches. Providing resources to answer basic questions while freeing staff to tend to those students that need more in-depth attention means all of its students will be better served, Diggs said.

“We’ve expanded our student services significantly,” she said, “and we’ve done it in ways that allows every student an outlet at any time of day or night to get the help and information they need.”

The District is providing consistent training for administrators and staff to make sure the new programs integrate smoothly with existing services, and tracking its progress to make sure all services are consistently improving.

“We’re tracking student satisfaction with our overall service periodically to make sure we’re providing the best platforms available to serve their needs,” Diggs said. “We don’t view student service as a fixed target, but something that we will consistently improve upon to make sure everyone who comes through our doors is having the best experience possible.”