'You're loved': Fayetteville State hosts more than 300 young men for inaugural summit
Qu’Derrick R. Covington watched with a smile as more than 300 young men cheered and danced in their seats at Fayetteville State University’s Rudolph Jones Student Center on Wednesday morning for the inaugural Keys to Success event.
Hosted by Covington’s nonprofit, the Tulsa Initiative, and FSU’s Matriculation Institute, the event welcomed 330 male Cumberland County high school students onto campus to hear from speakers on the tools for success in life and to learn about community resources, Covington said Wednesday.
According to Covington, the Tulsa Initiative is “an entrepreneurship incubator for Black, Indigenous and people of color aged 18-25.” The Matriculation Institute is a four-year program for FSU students that aims to “improve retention and graduation rates by providing academic-focused support programs, life skills, financial literacy, and resiliency trading,” the program’s website states.
Covington planned Wednesday’s event with Dr. Roderick T. Heath, FSU’s assistant vice chancellor for student affairs and dean of students, to try to reach men ages 13 to 25 after feedback from community members, he said.
“Dr. Heath and I put our brains together and got some guys in the room to figure out, ‘Hey, what’s some strategies that’s rooted in research, best practice, that we can do to make sure that we put our best foot forward with helping these guys and taking on this issue head-on?’” Covington said. "(Keys to Success) was birthed out of that, but the unique part to it was we wanted to be able to connect these young men with community resources, not just bring them in to hear a motivational speaker."
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Heath said Wednesday that he and Covington were also inspired by what they saw as a lack of use of FSU’s resources in the community.
“A lot of these young men are not coming onto campus,” Heath said. “Although they may not come here for college, why are we not engaging them as high school students? How can we better serve them?”
Making success happen
After having the idea for the event in mid-September, Heath said he reached out to Covington, and the two were able to plan it in three weeks.
“When we went to the community partners, they was ready to sign up,” Heath said. “I think the community's been waiting on something like this, but nobody has really put it together.”
Covington said a crucial part of the planning process was reaching out to Cumberland County Schools.
“We’ve been working with them for the last year,” he said. “We said, ‘Hey, we did the youth summit six months ago in April. We really want to do this male summit again, looking at the data that is coming out around gun violence, youth crime, and really trying to put a positive edge on this to engage these young men before it’s too late.’”
The Fayetteville Youth Summit was hosted by The Tulsa Initiative and seven other community organizations in April at Fayetteville State, according to The Tulsa Initiative's Facebook page. The organization described the summit as "a half day of leadership, character and professional development" and hosted more than 200 Cumberland County students, according to Covington.
On Wednesday, Cumberland County high schools provided transportation for the students, Covington said, adding that he was “thankful” for the partnership.
The city of Fayetteville also played a large role in the event, serving as a headline sponsor, Covington said.
“We just had a conversation with the city manager, as well as Chris Cauley in economic and community development,” he said. “They were really cheerleaders with making sure that we were able to pull this off.”
Heath said that in picking the speakers for the summit, he and Covington wanted to focus on men with a large social media presence from different walks of life who could resonate with high school boys.
“We wanted people that they could kind of look up to, visualize. We’re in the social media world, so all of those people that we had on stage have big followings,” Heath said. “All those people that was there today, if you watch their social media, they’re all about influencing. They wake up every day sending positive vibes, positive messages out to anybody who’s willing to listen.”
Wednesday’s lineup featured Casey Gregg, a community activist; Grant Bennett, a diversity, equity and inclusion strategist for Google and founder of the Two-Six Project; Tim Timberlake, a Jacksonville, Florida-based pastor who works with professional athletes; Christian Gray, a men’s basketball play development coach at North Carolina Central University; and Jalon McAllister Smith, Mr. Fayetteville State University 2023.
In addition to the speakers, 50 community partners attended Wednesday's event, Covington said, including representatives from the Army, the Fayetteville Fire Department, student organizations at FSU and local nonprofits.
'You're loved'
Covington and Heath said they were proud of the event’s ultimate outcome.
“We had multiple young men stand up and have a vulnerable moment and ask for a mentor from the panel,” Covington said. “I thought that was incredible. It really expressed the level of safeness in the room, of a safe space, a space of inclusion, that they feel vulnerable enough to stand up in front of all of their peers and say, ‘Hey, I need a mentor. We hear everything that y’all talking about, but I need a mentor.’”
Wednesday was peppered with moments like that, the men said, sharing anecdotes of students who asked for advice on breaking negative cycles and self-improvement.
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“These young men, we’re just trying to show them that in these rooms, you’re loved, you’re family,” Heath said. “Anything that you need, any question you may have, this is the place where you want to be.”
Looking forward, Heath and Covington hope to hold a similar event for young women and make both summits annual events in tandem with their co-ed youth summits.
“There is a need, and we have the tools to address the need. We have the skillset. We have the education. We have the experience,” Covington said. “We have the resources. We have the community connections. We have the partners to address that need.”
Got a tip for a follow-up on this story? Government watchdog reporter Lexi Solomon can be reached at ABSolomon@gannett.com or 910-481-8526.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville State and the Tulsa Initiative host young men's summit
