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Factoid: For more information on the weekend's activities or to find out about registration and costs, call the SIU Alumni Association at 453-2408.
It will be a weekend to focus on both the past and the future.
At least that's how organizers of the ninth Black Alumni Reunion - which will bring about 500 past graduates of SIUC back to campus for a weekend of food, sport, socializing and celebration - see the upcoming festivities.
There's more at stake than just a weekend of camaraderie. There's looking at the colorful past of blacks at SIU to consider and also a time to show concern for the future.
After all, who will take the place of all these "old guys" from SIU's past, asks Black Alumni Group President Hubert Avent.
"We want to get people involved while they're still in Carbondale," Avent said of the reunion's theme, "Coming Home To Nourish Our Roots." "These are the young people who are going to go out into the world next, and we have to nourish our roots."
And thus, with an eye on the black students who will become the next generation of SIU alumni, this weekend's gathering will include a few special guests - namely SIU alumnus and this weekend's keynote speaker Dick Gregory, who has made a name for himself since his graduation in the 1950s as an acclaimed comedian, author and civil rights activist, and three members of the Little Rock Nine who can claim SIU as their alma mater.
Those three students -Minnijean Brown Trickey, Thelma M. Wair and Terrance J. Roberts - were among the nine black students who were instrumental in integrating Arkansas' Central High School in 1957.
"We have to recognize that many of the people coming back attended in the '50s and '60s," said Seymour Bryson, associate chancellor for Diversity and the co-chair of this weekend's reunion planning committee. "What you're seeing demonstrated this weekend is SIU's past commitment."
That past commitment was one of the first of its kind in the nation, booming in the 1950s when then-SIU President Delyte Morris welcomed blacks to SIU with open arms at a time when integrated education was still a taboo. Although blacks from states such as Kentucky and Tennessee had long since made SIU an educational haven, Morris' efforts set a precedent that is still felt today. According to a June 5 study in Blacks In Higher Education Magazine, SIU is ranked sixth in the nation among traditionally white universities for graduating black students and 16th total among all schools.
Nourishing that trend so that it continues well into the future is this weekend's primary goal, Bryson said. In addition to the weekend's centerpiece events - namely, the reception at 10 a.m. Friday in room 26 of Morris Library with the Little Rock Nine alumni and the banquet with Gregory at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in Student Center Ballrooms C and D - the three days will be filled with bowling specials at Student Center Bowling and Billiards, exhibits at the University Museum and a whole slate of workshops Friday in the Student Center.
Among the topics to be discussed are student financial aid, financial planning and the "Relationship of Politics and Education," presented by alumnus and State Rep. William Davis, D-Harvey, and Linda Renee Baker, the former secretary to the Illinois Department of Human Services and current employee of the SIU Public Policy Institute.
And with such a full slate for the weekend, Bryson and Avent are confident that this year's reunion will demonstrate to the SIU community just how much the University's black alumni have affected the school and the nation at large.
But, even more importantly, it gives them a chance to plant the seeds into SIU's next generation of black alumni.
"We have a great deal of indebtedness to SIU," Avent said. "We feel much of our success is owed to those who guided us through that period of our lives, and it's time to pass that on."
