The Long Island Tuskegee University Alumni Club will hold its 64th regional conference Aug. 19 to 21 to support students at the historically Black college. The school was founded in Jim Crow-era Alabama in 1881 by several educators, including Booker T. Washington, who later went on to international fame. The university celebrated its 130th anniversary this year on July 4.
The conference will begin Friday, Aug. 19, at the LaGuardia Hotel in East Elmhurst, 104-04 Ditmars Blvd., with a range of speakers and events as well as a banquet dinner program.
“Alumni from Maine to Virginia are expected,” said Barbara Cleveland, president of the Long Island Tuskegee Alumni Association. “We come together to show our love and support for our university.”
Cleveland added that the conference will also give alumni an opportunity to network, share ideas and give back to the university in an effort to ensure its longevity. She noted that today the historically Black university turns out more Black engineering students than any other college or university in the country, including Ivy League institutions.
On Saturday, Aug. 20, a recruitment fair will be held from 9 a.m. to noon to give high school students an opportunity to learn more about Tuskegee University. If desired, students graduating from high school in the spring of 2012 can apply for admission that day.
Following the recruitment fair, Dr. David Snead, a widely hailed Tuskegee alumnus who recently retired as the superintendent of schools in Waterbury, Conn., will be the featured speaker at a luncheon.
Later that night, beginning at 7 p.m., the sixth president of Tuskegee University, Dr. Gilbert L. Rochon, will speak at the Crimson and Gold Banquet.
“We welcome supporters and friends of Tuskegee to come out and join us for our luncheon and/or Crimson and Gold Banquet,” said Cleveland. “And we encourage students who are seriously interested in engineering, veterinary medicine, the agricultural sciences such as forestry, as well as business, business and information science, military science and nursing to join us for our recruitment fair.”