The College of Charleston’s Office of Institutional Diversity and the Charleston County School District will host Steve Perry, founder and principal of Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford, Conn., on Sept. 19, 2015.
Steve Perry
This event will take place in the ballroom of the Stern Center at 71 George St. The program is free and open to the public. However, reservations are required and can be made by contacting the Office of Institutional Diversity at oid@cofc.edu or 843.953.0840. A meet-and-greet will start at 9:30 a.m., and Perry will speak at 10 a.m., addressing the topic “Minority Students’ Achievement Gap and Success.”
Perry is regarded as one of the country’s most innovative educators and appears on television as an education analyst for CNN and MSNBC. Capital Preparatory Magnet School is considered one of the top schools in the country and has sent 100 percent of its predominately low-income, minority, first-generation high school graduates to four-year colleges every year since its first graduating class in 2006.
Unfortunately, not every high school is so successful.
“According to the U.S. Department of Education, despite unprecedented efforts to improve minority achievement in the past decade, the gap between black and white students remains frustratingly wide,”says John Bello-Ogunu, Sr., associate vice president and chief diversity officer at the College. “The good news is that there are so many institutions, agencies, and individuals throughout the country—like Dr. Perry—who have refused to give up the fight for closing this unwanted and potentially destructive gap.”
The College’s Office of Institutional Delivery’s “Critical Issues in Diversity” series was developed to raise awareness about diversity and to start a dialogue about sensitive topics impacting the College of Charleston campus and beyond.
