News

The Department of Counseling Services at Johnson C. Smith University was recently awarded the Garrett Lee Smith Suicide Prevention Awareness Grant to address mental health concerns on campus.

Tierra Parsons, director of Counseling Services at JCSU, says the nearly $300,000 grant will help the campus take a proactive approach to mental health. The grant announcement came just one day before the start of National Suicide Prevention Month, which began Sept. 1.  

While most teenagers headed off to high school excited to see their friends and learn something new, Obaida Mohammad and his siblings were stopped daily at Israeli checkpoint crossings in Israel-Palestine. Mohammad and his fellow Palestinians experienced and continue to experience much more traumatic inconveniences than checkpoints. Through his lived experience of midnight raids of villages and homes, arrests without cause and extreme military presence and oversight, Mohammad decided it was time to start discussing the humanitarian crisis that is the continual displacement of the Palestinian people.

Hundreds of new Golden Bulls joined together Thursday morning in the Jane M. Smith Memorial Church for Freshman Convocation.

The convocation, which is a rite of passage for all new Smithites entering the storied University, featured the bestowing of cords and pins as new students recited the honor code and received official greetings from their elected student leaders, administration and Dr. Valerie Kinloch, 15th president of JCSU.

The pews were packed in the Jane M. Smith Memorial Church Thursday as Johnson C. Smith University kicked off its inaugural Lyceum Engagement Series with a public address from Dr. Valerie Kinloch, the 15th president of JCSU.

Kinloch shared her strategic vision for the University with the crowd, which was comprised of faculty, staff, alumni, community members and student groups, including the entire IIOS Marching Band and Golden Bulls Football team.

Dr. Angela White, dean of College University and Student Success, hopes to make Johnson C. Smith University a model for holistic, coordinated student care at an HBCU. In order to accomplish that goal, she has instituted two initiatives that will work hand-in-hand to address student needs both inside and outside of the classroom.

Faculty and staff gathered at the Hilton Charlotte University Place Hotel in August to discuss the University’s numerous Title III activities and how they progressed throughout the 2022-23 academic year.

The year-end review impact presentations followed the successes of 13 activities, which included updating technology for student and employee success, renovating academic facilities, integrating the arts and sciences and supporting research integrity and ethics, among others.

Israel-Palestine is a spiritual mecca for several world religions. Now, students at Johnson C. Smith University will have the opportunity to embark on a two-week journey to the region in Summer 2024. This will be the first study abroad trip held since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which handicapped or all together halted travel to certain areas outside of the U.S. 

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Faculty and staff filed into Jane M. Smith Memorial Church Wednesday morning, where Dr. Valerie Kinloch ’96, 15th president of Johnson C. Smith, addressed the group for the first time during the Opening of School Conference. The bi-annual conference, held a few days before the start of each semester, gives campus leadership the opportunity to share JCSU updates. This year, Kinloch set an energetic tone for the semester to come. 

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Public speaking is one of the most common fears shared amongst people from all walks of life. But Assistant Professor of Communications Arts Dr. Jasmine M. Corbett knows the skill of communication is the key that opens doors to bright futures.

That’s when she decided to partner with her colleagues in the Communications Arts program to start The VoiceOver Project at JCSU in hopes of engaging students in meaningful projects to improve their grades and become more comfortable with communicating.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently announced that Johnson C. Smith University’s College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) will receive a $1 million grant to build the next generation of STEM professionals who have a comprehensive education in dealing with natural disasters.