Ride the Rattler Express to the Florida Classic!

Tom Joyner Foundation/Ford Get Out and Drive One Partnership supporting HBCUs

Tom Joyner and the Tom Joyner Foundation® are encouraging all Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) alumni and friends to participate in the Tom Joyner Foundation/Ford “Get Out and Drive One” promotion that will run from Wednesday, October 21, 2009 until Monday, January 4, 2010. By test driving any Ford, Lincoln, or Mercury vehicle between now and January 4, 2010, a $25 donation will be made in the your name to FAMU!

Download the “Get Out and Drive One” coupon from www.blackamericaweb.com and take it to any Ford dealership. Once you test drive any vehicle, the coupon will be validated and you can go back to the website to complete your donation on behalf of yourself and the Ford Motor Company. Together, we can raise up to $250,000 for FAMU!

FAMU Mobile Giving Initiative!

Florida Classic Host Hotel Information

The host hotel for the 30th Annual Florida Classic is:

Hilton Orlando Bonnet Creek
14100 Bonnet Creek Resort Lane
Orlando, Florida 32821
www.hiltonbonnetcreek.com


Rate per night: $109

Cut off date: November 19, 2009

Phone No.: 1-888-353-2013

SRP Code: FAMU-ZFAM or Florida A&M Classic Weekend

RATTLERS BUMP UP IN NATIONAL FOOTBALL POLLS

The Florida A&M University Rattler Football team moved up two spots in The Sports Network Top 25 Poll for NCAA Division I FCS team announced on Monday afternoon.

FAMU (4-0), which made its' first Top 25 appearance in last week's poll, checking in at #24, moved up to #22 this week, following several upsets of higher-ranked FCS teams.

The Rattlers were ranked weekly in the FCS polls for a long stretch from 1995 through 2001, finishing the 1998 regular season #1 in the USA Today 25 Poll.

FAMU was last ranked in the national polls in 2001, when they soared as high as #8 during that season.

This week's Sheridan Broadcasting Network Poll (SBN) has the Rattlers a solid #2 nationally with 273 points and eight (8) first place votes, behind South Carolina State, just eight points (281) ahead, while owning a big edge in first place votes (22).

The Rattlers will have two critical games in a row beginning this week with a 7 p.m. showdown against the Miami Hurricanes, Saturday in Land Shark Stadium, before their October 17 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference heavyweight bout in Orangeburg, S.C., against South Carolina State, at 2 p.m.

Fall 2009 Career Expo

All students and alumni are encouraged to attend Florida A&M University’s (FAMU) C.C. Cunningham Career Center’s Fall 2009 Career Expo on Wednesday, September 30, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Tallahassee-Leon County Civic Center. A career expo reception is scheduled for Tuesday, September 29, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Tallahassee-Leon County Civic Center. Both events are free.

“The expo and the reception gives the students and alumni the opportunity to network with potential employers on a formal and informal basis,” said Delores Dean, Ph.D., director of the career center. “The expo officially kicks off our recruitment efforts for the rest of the semester.”

Business attire is required for all expo participants. Free shuttle service is available. For additional information, call (850) 599-3700.

FAMU College of Law associate dean featured on Bill O'Reilly Show

The Huffington Post highlighted Florida A&M University (FAMU) College of Law associate dean, Jeremy Levitt appearance on Fox's Bill O'Reilly show. See their article by clicking here.

Levitt discussed a column he wrote for the Orlando Sentinel. Below is a video of his appearance.



For more information on Florida A&M University, visit www.FAMU.edu.

Below is Levitt's column, published September 15, 2009.

President Obama, race and the unpatriotic right

The far right and its right-wing brethren's most recent barrage of indignant and visceral attacks against President Barack Hussein Obama has led me to conclude that the scourge of anti-Obama fanaticism is nothing more than foolish racism masquerading as patriotism and phony Christianity.

It is no secret that the far right and its institutions have an unjust guttural dislike for President Obama. After allowing George W. Bush to destroy our economy and international standing without challenge for eight years, the far right's central strategy for helping America is to attempt to delegitimize Obama with trailer-park prowess.

Right-wing disdain for the first African-American president is primordially violent and expressed in dishonest, uninformed, racist and unpatriotic rhetoric and demonstration.

I am not concerned with right-wing dishonesty, ignorance, racism or hate marching; these are not new phenomena in American culture and politics. However, what concerns me is the combustible combination of these perspectives when combined with a lethal dose of violent and unpatriotic actions targeting the U.S. president.

Certain fanatical people and groups, not worthy of specific mention, recently toted guns at presidential town-hall meetings wearing menacing T-shirts that read: "It is time to water the tree of liberty."

This was a symbolically threatening parity of Thomas Jefferson's celebrated call for vigilance: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots." Regrettably, this dangerously insolent and unpatriotic message was aimed at the leader of the Free World.

A patriot is one who loves, supports and defends his or her nation and loves its citizens, especially the U.S. president. A patriot subscribes to symbolic values such as honoring the flag, singing the national anthem and fighting nonviolently for fundamental freedoms. A patriot honors the U.S. president, irrespective of his or her biases.

The U.S. president is the head of state and government, as well as the highest official in the country and commander in chief of the armed forces. He is not only the most-influential and -recognized political figure in the world, but also the living embodiment of our democracy.

While I believe that it is healthy to constructively engage and criticize government, the far right has shamed our nation by attacking President Obama with unpatriotic idioms and schemes.

As a close follower of presidential politics, I do not remember another time when an American president was so unpatriotically maligned by Americans, namely, right-wing politicians and media, and the millions of Joe and Judy plumbers who would disown Jesus if they knew he was African, and Obama if he were the Second Coming.

The truth remains that right-wing anti-Obama rhetoric around abortion, health care, education, gun control and foreign policy are cowardly coded smoke screens intended to mask fear and racism.

Whether it is the birthers movement, gun-toting right-wing anarchists, bigoted congressmen, hate marchers or garden-variety dogmatists, the fact remains that Obama won the election.

Any American family that participates in the far-right campaign against President Obama by, for example, depriving their children of the opportunity to receive apolitical words of wisdom and encouragement from the president and leader of the free world, is unpatriotic.

Is it patriotic to stifle debate with right-wing anti-Obama propaganda when our nation stands in the balance between a broken economy, a controversial war on terrorism, a sick health-care system and an uneducated educational system? Is it patriotic to malign the first African-American president with racially coded and violent messaging?

The far right and its right-wing brethren have shown that they are driven by envy and racial animus.

I would remind the far right what the Apostle Paul wrote, " ... there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God." Hence, Obama is the U.S. president and leader of the Free World because he was appointed by God.

Need I say more?

Jeremy Levitt is associate dean for International Programs and a distinguished professor of international law at the FAMU College of Law in Orlando.

GAME ON!

Representative Alan B. Williams will Keynote Founders Day Convocation

FAMU has scheduled its Founders Day Convocation for Friday, October 2, at 10:10 a.m. in Lee Hall Auditorium. The keynote speaker will be Representative Alan B. Williams. The general public is invited to attend.

Representative Williams is the president and CEO of MW Land and Investments, LLC, a property management and business development firm, founded in 2006.

In November 2008, Williams was elected to the Florida House of Representatives, District 8, which encompasses parts of Leon and Gadsden Counties. Representative Williams serves on the Energy and Utilities Policy Committee, General Government Policy Council, Government Accountability Act Council, Government Appropriations Committee, the Joint Committee of Public Council Oversight, and the Joint Committee on Collective Bargaining.

Prior to being elected, Williams was an aide to Tallahassee Mayor John Marks, serving as liaison between the community and the Office of the Mayor. He advised the Mayor on appointments to all city advisory boards and represented the Mayor’s interests as a board member for the Tallahassee Visitors and Area Convention Bureau and the NASA Challenger Learning Center Board of Advisors.

For his service, Williams has been named Kappa Alpha Psi Brother of the Year, Leadership Tallahassee Board of Governors Chair (2008), Statewide Council of Advisors for Leadership Florida (2007), Ebony Magazine’s “Twenty Future Leaders under 30” (2003) and many more.

He is a member of Leadership Tallahassee; Opportunity Tallahassee; Leadership Florida; area Chambers of Commerce; United Way of the Big Bend Board of Directors; and the United States Commission on Civil Right Advisory Committee.

Rep. Williams is married to Attorney Opal McKinney-Williams, a FAMU graduate from Miami, Fla. They have two children, Adrianna Williams and Alan-Louis Portlock Williams.

For more information, contact the Office of Communications at (850) 599-3413.

FAMU'S VANN TO APPEAR ON COLLEGE GAME DAY SATURDAY

The hits just keep on coming for FAMU All-America kick returner LeRoy Vann, who will be the subject of a feature segment on this Saturday's ESPN COLLEGE
GAME DAY, Built By Home Depot, which airs at 10 a.m. Eastern Time on ESPN.

Vann will be interviewed by former Michigan Heisman Trophy winner, NFL All-Pro and GAME DAY panelist Desmond Howard on campus Tuesday as part
of the production for the segment.

The Tampa native was named NCAA FCS Special Teams Player of the Week by The Sports Network and MEAC, and will be higlighted in this week's
editions of Sports Illustrated.

LEROY VANN TO BE DISCUSSED ON ESPN SHOW FRIDAY

Florida A&M's scintillating kick return ace LeRoy Vann, who has run four punts back for touchdowns in the last two games, will be a topic for discussion on this Fridays “Around The Horn” talk show on ESPN and ESPN News.

The program airs live at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time on ESPN, featuring a panel of four sportswriters and sportscasters discussing hot topics of the day in sports.

“Around The Horn” will usually re-air on ESPN News at 6:00 p.m. Eastern, but viewers should check their cable listings, as the program occasionally airs on ESPN2 at 5:00 p.m., when programming bumps them from ESPN.

Vann has turned in two spectacular performances in a row on national television, with two punt returns (95, 80 yards) for scores against Winston-Salem State last week, before taking two more back on Thursday (40, 66 yards) against Howard University.

WIN TICKETS TO THE ATLANTA CLASSIC!

Win two tickets to the Atlanta Classic plus accommodations for the game at no cost to you. Text the word "VENOM" to 50555. The winner will be announced and contacted tomorrow morning. You have to text to win! Please text "Venom" to 50555 to be eligible to win. For this transaction, standard text messaging rates apply. For prize rules please log onto:

http://www.famu.edu/index.cfm?GiveToFAMU&OfficialMobilePrizeRules

For full terms, visit http://www.mgive.com/a

FAMU Student Health Services Sponsors Prostate Cancer Event

In observance of Prostate Cancer Awareness Week, Florida A&M University (FAMU) Student Health Services will sponsor a men-only interactive seminar followed by a tailgate party on September 17, to recognize the importance of prostate cancer awareness. Although this seminar is a men-only event, women are invited to join the tailgate party as long as they bring two men to the seminar.

The seminar will be held in Howard Hall from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. and the tailgate party will be held from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. outside of Howard Hall. Prostate cancer survivors, local physicians, public health officials and church leaders will be in attendance. Attendees will receive pertinent information regarding men’s health issues.

Student Health Services will provide give-away bags for all seminar and tailgate attendees. For more information, call (850) 599-3777.

FAMU Schedules 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony

FAMU has scheduled a 9/11 Remembrance Ceremony for Friday, September 11, at 10 a.m. at the eternal flame on FAMU’s campus. The ceremony will commemorate the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks that claimed more than 3,000 lives.

Participants include Provost Cynthia Hughes Harris, LTC Jeffrey Williams, Gallop Franklin, FAMU Board of Trustee member and president of the student government association and others.

The campus community and the general public are invited to attend.

FAMU to Host Green Summit for Student Leaders

The challenges related to global climate change and the need to be more sustainable have started to gain traction on the campus of Florida A&M University (FAMU).

On September 11-12, the FAMU Green Coalition will host a Green Summit to provide student leaders with the knowledge and resources to help combat global climate change. Registration for the Summit is open to one representative per FAMU student group on a first-come, first-served basis.

“We expect about 100 students to attend the Summit representing 60 different student organizations,” said LaRae Donnellan, FAMU journalism professor and cofounder of the FAMU Green Coalition. The Summit is registered with the “Green the Block National Day of Service,” organized by Green For All and the Hip Hop Caucus.

The Coalition has been leading efforts since December 2006 to educate students about the significant ecological, economic and social impacts of global climate change and empower students to address those impacts.

“Every student has the power and responsibility for creating a healthier environment,” said Jacqueline Hightower, SACS administrator and interim adviser for the Coalition. “College students have been at the forefront of many significant issues of the past, including the civil rights movement and combating apartheid in South Africa. Mitigating our carbon footprint is just as important.”

FAMU President James H. Ammons, Green For All Director Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, and Hip Hop Caucus President Rev. Lennox Yearwood will give video welcomes to the group. Nia Robinson, director of the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative, is the keynote speaker Friday night. She will address the social justice and environmental racism aspects of global climate change.

Other workshops will address topics such as understanding global climate change and the energy-climate era; setting up a recycling program; living a green lifestyle; working with government to bring about change; and exploring the connection between global climate change and health. Speakers are coming from city, county and state government, FAMU and FSU; Sustainable Tallahassee; National Wildlife Federation; and Southern Energy Network. At the end of the Summit, the student leaders will commit to a plan of action for the year – including events for homecoming.
 


“At the Summit we'll be modeling how to host green events and cut down on our carbon footprint,” Hightower said. “This includes offering locally produced organic food, serving beverages in refillable mugs and reusing conference supplies.”

More information about the Summit and the Coalition is available by calling 599-8832.