(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

That time of year is coming up. Graduations and commencement speakers. This year, “America’s Doctor” Regina Benjamin, M.D., United States Surgeon General, will deliver the commencement address to the Spelman College class of 2013. The graduation ceremony will take place on May 19.

In addition to giving the speech to more than 500 graduates, she will also  receive an honorary degree on at the Georgia International Convention Center.

“As an accomplished medical professional whose top concern is the health and wellness of the nation and American citizens abroad, Dr. Benjamin is an exemplary role model for Spelman students,” said President Beverly Daniel Tatum, Ph.D, in a press statement.  “Her passion and persistence in providing health care to those without access is inspiring, and so consistent with the values of Spelman College. We are delighted that she will address the graduating class as they go out into the world to pursue their own passions, and become the thought leaders and change agents they have been educated to become.”

Dr. Benjamin is considered a media trailblazer. She was the first physician under age 40 and the first African-American woman to be elected to the American Medical Association Board of Trustees in 1995. Benjamin was also the first African-American female president of a state medical society in the United States when she assumed leadership of the Medical Association State of Alabama in 2002.

Despite her success, Dr. Benjamin gave back to the community. She founded  a rural health clinic in Alabama , which she kept up and running even after it was damaged by Hurricanes Georges in 1998 and Katrina in 2005 and then by a  fire in 2006. She was selected for the role Surgeon General by President Obama in 2009.

Spelman will also bestow honorary degrees upon Freeman Hrabowski, III, Ph.D., president of University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Harriet Mitchell Murphy, ’49, retired judge for the State of Texas. The Rev. Dr. Joseph Echols Lowery, civil rights advocate, will receive the National Community Service Award.

Image via the Spelman Wellness Facebook page

Alum Keshia Knight Pulliam may have just added $1 million to Spelman’s coffers with her fundraising efforts, but the school is still concerned with how it’s budgeting and spending its money.

Last week, the school announced that it would be cutting the funding for its intercollegiate sports program, instead investing that money in wellness programs. The sports program, Spelman President Beverly Daniel Tatum, told The Root, only benefits 80 students, where the wellness program will reach 2,100. Of the 80 negatively-affected students, 20 have graduated and 20 will graduate in 2013. The sports program for those 80 students was costing $1 million.

“The wellness program is a free resource for students created more than three years ago, where students can meet privately with the wellness coordinator, set up a personal fitness program and take classes,” the website reports.

For many students, participating on a sports team is a big part of the college experience. For others, it’s makes the college experience possible, providing scholarships and other support.

But Spelman is looking at this through a different lens. The school is renovating its decades-old gym to accommodate more students, revamping its physical education program, and reconsidering its cafeteria menus. President Tatum points out the high rates of obesity and hypertension among African Americans in her comments to The Root. The article cites Health and Human Services stats showing that “four out of five African-American women are overweight or obese.”

On the flip side, of course, are the benefits of offering women sporting opportunities. This year, we commemorate the 40th anniversary of Title IX, a set of education amendments signed into law by President Richard Nixon that allowed for a number of gender-equalizing policies. A writer for Wired, Kay Moore, attended the espnW Summit recently, where Title IX was celebrated. Among the things that the amendments allow for are more sports programs for women. (Also included: a written rule forbidding discrimination against young women who are or were pregnant, among other things.) The benefits to girls and women are myriad.

“According to testimony before Congress, for girls who engage in sport, 50% are less likely to suffer depression and breast cancer, 80% are less likely to have a drug problem, and 92% are less likely to have an unwanted pregnancy,” Wired says.

In other words, the government has supported female athletics for four decades and its benefits have been touted. Title IX, and its funding, also became an election issue, with the GOP making it one more proposed cut during an imaginary Romney/Ryan administration.

But Spelman, in a move that addresses the specific problems facing its student body and the black community, has decided that health is the critical issue that its budget must tackle. What better way to spend a ton of cash that to set loose upon American society 2,100 educated black women to tell their mothers, sisters, aunts, friends and children that they need to think about health and wellness on a daily basis? To share the health lessons they learned in college with others?

“This is nothing less than the wholesale re-imagining of the place of fitness in our society,” says Gawker. “What Spelman is doing is acknowledging that fitness is not a competition… It is not too much to ask that every college graduate in America leave school with the knowledge of how to do basic exercises properly, how to design a basic personal fitness plan, and how to avoid eating themselves into an early grave.” Word.

While it would be nice to have both the sports and the wellness program, if you have to choose one, it should be the one that provides the greatest good for the greatest number. In this case, the benefits of Spelman’s program go beyond its gates, touching all those that will come in contact with the empowered, fit and healthy women that pass through its enhanced wellness program.

Black women have a long and proud history of advancing the cause of education in America. Their groundbreaking accomplishments – particularly in higher education –inspire, encourage, and challenge not only black women, but people of every race, age,  gender, and economic background to pursue their dreams.  From the first black female PhD graduates to the first black female presidents of prestigious universities, the 7 women on this list are game changers in the world of education and beyond.

Photo courtesy of Encyclopedia.com

Dr. Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander

In 1921, when Dr. Sadie T. M. Alexander graduated from the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton School, she became the first black person in America to earn a doctorate in economics, and only the second black female to earn a doctorate in any area. Following graduation, Alexander enrolled in the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and helped found the National Bar Association. In 1927, she was the first black woman to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Adding to this impressive list, Alexander was the first black woman to pass the bar exam, and when she went to work for her husband’s law firm, Alexander became the first black woman to practice law in Pennsylvania.  In 1948, President Harry Truman appointed her to his Committee on Civil Rights, where she coauthored the Commission’s report, “To Secure These Rights,” which laid the foundation for Truman’s civil rights policy.

(AJC) — First Lady Michelle Obama spoke about community service, helping others and overcoming obstacles when she addressed 550 Spelman College graduates Sunday in College Park.  ”Do big things,” she told her audience. “Now it’s your turn to repay the favor.” Obama delivered her keynote speech to 9,000 people in the ballroom of the Georgia International Convention Center, saluting the graduating class for one of the nation’s two historically black women’s colleges.  “It is vitally important that you all rise to the highest ranks of every industry and every profession,” Obama said. “As you climb those career ladders, just remember to reach down and pull others up behind you.”  Obama recounted how she took a high-paying job in the high-rise offices of a Chicago law firm. While she welcomed the paycheck, and paying down her student loans, she missed doing more fulfilling work.

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Some say the need for HBCUs has long passed and it’s time to give up the ghost on an “all black everything” college education.  Beyond very entertaining halftime shows, legendary homecoming celebrations and the string of news articles on financial mismanagement– a lot of folks just aren’t familiar with what HBCUs have to offer.

The Grio took some time to explain just that:

HBCUs excel as a group as well. A National Science Foundation study found that the top eight colleges producing African Americans who went on to get Ph.Ds. in science and engineering over the previous decade were HBCUs — ahead of Harvard, UC-Berkeley, MIT, Brown and Stanford.

Check out more of the pro-HBCU argument right here!

Do you think HBCUs are still important? Why or why not?

by Sue Naylor

There are over 100 HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) where over 370,000 black students study with larger groups of non-black students. This network of integrated schools provides black students a safe and secure learning atmosphere.

At the bottom of the list of the top 10 black colleges is North Carolina Central University, which is the only public college that has made it to the list. With over 100 undergraduate and 40 graduate programs of study, NCCU appeals to all students. Dillard University in New Orleans offers more than 35 majors and has a reputed nursing school. It is famous for the Institute of Jazz Culture that was established in 2002. Claflin University is a ‘Very Selective HBCU’ and is a South Carolina based liberal arts college. Tuskegee University has a strong agricultural tradition as was designated by Congress as a national historic site. Hampton University offers 68 undergraduate programs, 27 masters programs, 6 doctoral programs and 2 specialist degrees in education. Among the top 5 black colleges, at number 5 is Xavier University of Louisiana, which is the only black Roman Catholic university in the United States and has one of two pharmacy schools in Louisiana.

Fisk University at Tennessee was give tier 1 status in the 2008 ranking by the U.S. News & World Report. It is renowned for its Jubilee Singers choir. Morehouse College is a part of the Atlanta University Center and is an all-male liberal arts college. Howard University or ‘Black Harvard’ with ‘Spelman College’ tops the list of black colleges.

(theGrio.com) — Spelman College will use a $1 million grant to increase the number of engineers who are black women.

Officials announced Friday that the historically black women’s college got a grant from ExxonMobil. It will allow the college to offer scholarships to women interested in technology-related programs.

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