FEBUARY17, 2010
North Carolina
Central
University
VOLUME 101, ISSUE 8
1801 Fayetteville Street
Durham, NC 27707
A&E
Hammering Habitats
919 530 7116/campusecho@ncgu.edu
WWW.CAMPUSECHO.COM
Campus
1
1-4
Beyond
Opinions
Beyond
5
2011 federal budget
Samm-Art Wiiiiams
Jay Jones wants
Corliss Pauling spends
Feature
e-7
pumps extra $30
brings “The Dance
students to take on
the day with Habitat
A&E
SB
million increase
on Widow’s Row”
responsibiiity, even
volunteers
■ ■ . ■■■ .7
Classifleds.
Sports.
ID
11
into HBCUs
to campus
on snow days
Pages 6-7
■
Opinion
12
Page 5
Page 11
Page 12
Campus Echo
Crawley trial underway
Defendant Shannon Crawley is accused of murdering
NCCU student Denita Smith In 2007.
Ashley GRiFFiN/Ecfeo staff photographer
By Ashley Griffin
WITH Ashley Roque
ECHO ASSISTANT EDITOR
It’s been just over three
years since N.C. Central
University student Denita
Monique Smith was shot
and killed outside her
Campus Crossings apart
ment just after 8 a.m. on
January 4,2007.
Smith, a graduate stu
dent at the time of the
shooting, was 25 years old.
According to forensics tes
timony, she was shot in the
back of the head from a dis
tance of about two feet.
At the time, police inves
tigators described Smith’s
shooting as “planned and
personal.”
At the time of her death.
Smith was engaged to be
married to Jemeir Stroud,
an NCCU alumnus and
Greensboro police officer.
The two met at NCCU and
had dated since 2000, her
freshman year.
After a number of
delays, the trial of her
accused murderer.
Shannon Elizabeth
Crawley, is now underway.
Denita M. Smith
Echo file photo
In his opening state
ment, Durham Assistant
District Attorney David
Saaks said, “Denita was on
top of the world. She was a
graduate student, she was
well-respected on campus,
she had pledged [a sorori
ty], her family loved her ...
and she was engaged to be
married.”
“And then she gets a bul
let to the back of the head
and ends up on the bottom
of a stairwell.”
Smith’s body and scat
tered personal items were
found at around 10 a.m. by
Campus Crossings resident
Cory Daniels.
Angela Ashby, Durham County forensics technician, points to crime scene items including
shoes, keys, and personal effects at a Campus Crossings stairwell.
Ashley Griffin/Ec/jo staff photographer
Daniels testified that he
thought Smith had fallen
down the stairwell from the
third to the ground floor.
“I called 911,” he testi
fied.
“I shook her shoulder
and said ‘Baby girl are you
OK?”’
Smith had accrued a
remarkable set of accom
plishments while at NCCU.
As an undergraduate she
was an Eagles Scholar, a
member of Sigma Tau
Delta International English
■ See TRIAL Page 2
Iran’s
threat
Clinton turns up
the heat on Tehran
I
By Borzou Daragahi
LOS ANGELES TIMES (MCT)
BEIRUT-In a ratcheting up of official
U.S. rhetoric against Iran, Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
flatly accused Tehran on Monday of
trying to build nuclear bombs and
painted the Islamic Republic as an
imminent military dictatorship
increasingly ruled by the elite
Revolutionary Guard.
But Clinton also denied the U.S.
was planning to launch a war
against Iran, saying Washington was
instead trying to rally nations to
economically pressure Tehran into
curbing sensitive aspects of its
nuclear program.
“We are planning to try to bring
the world community together in
applying pressure to Iran through
sanctions adopted by the United
Nations that will be particularly
aimed, at those enterprises con
trolled by the Revolutionary Guard,
which we believe is, in effect, sup
planting the government of Iran,”
she said during a visit with students
at Carnegie Mellon’s campus in
Qatar, according to news agencies.
“We see that the government of
Iran, the supreme leader, the presi
dent, the parliament is being sup
planted and that Iran is moving
toward a military dictatorship,” she
said.
The Revolutionary Guard is an
elite, ideologically motivated
branch of the Iranian military creat
ed after Islamic clerics toppled the
U.S.-backed monarch and took con
trol of Iran during a 1979 revolution.
Its members have risen to positions
■ See IRAN Page 5
NCCU
talks
Obama
Obama at NCCU in 2007.
Echo file photo (Bryson Pope)
By Jay Jones
ECHO STAFF REPORTER
With Presidents Day just
behind us, the question
must be asked: Are students
still hopeful?
Are Eagles still talking
politics? What, if anything,
has changed in a year?
President Barack Obama
was sworn in January 20,
2009. On Presidents Day
2009, his approval rating
was 64 percent, according
to Gallup polls.
As of February 1 of this
year, Obama’s approval rat
ing had dropped to 50 per
cent.
■ See OBAMA Page 3
A pioneer of history in images
NCCU alumnus Alex Rivera's photography now on display at art museum
By Tommia Hayes
ECHO STAFF WRITER
The name Alex Rivera is
synonymous with photojour
nalism.
Well known for portraying
the civil rights
movement
through his
camera lens,
he told stories
the country
would never
forget
“I never thought I was
involved in anything that was
history-making or great To
me, it was just another day-
to-day assignment,” he told
the New York Times. Rivera
died on October 23, 2008 at
95.
In honor of N.C. Central
University’s centennial
Centennial News
anniversary, some of Rivera’s
photography is on display in
the University art museum
through April 23.
Rivera was born in
Greensboro in 1913. His
father, a dentist was active in
the civil rights movement and
a member of the NAACP
Rivera attended Howard
University but hard times
during the 1930s forced him
leave school and seek work.
His first job was working
as a photojoumalist and arts
editor for the Washington
Tribune, a black weekly in
Washington D.C.
Rivera’s first major photo
assignment was to shoot
Marian Anderson’s historic
concert on the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial in 1939.
Fearing he was having too
much fun, Rivera’s father
and Dr. James Shepard,
NCCU’s founder, “conspired”
to get him off the streets of
D.C. and back to the South.
Rivera arrived at NCCU in
1939, then called North
Carolina College for Negroes,
to finish his education and
establish the University’s
public relations office.
He was elected student
body president his senior
year and received his BA in
1941.
Rivera often took pictures
of football games for other
black colleges when they had
no photographers.
The famous photograph of
Zora Neal Hurston attending
a football game at the
University in the 1940s was
taken by Rivera when the
■ See RIVERA Page 3
Alex Rivera displays his Crown Graphic camera in his office.
Echo file photo (Rashaun Rucker)
Program to mentor minority males
Gamma Beta chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha step for visiting males.
Willie Pace/EcEo staff photographer
By Carlton Koonce
ECHO EDUOR - IN - CHIEF
Looking around, it doesn’t
take long to realize that
there is a shortage of males
at N.C. Central University.
In fact, the lack of minori
ty males at higher education
institutions nationwide is no
new phenomenon.
The Minority Male
Mentoring Project is looking
to change this discrepancy
in the UNC system by per
suading minority men to
continue their education
beyond associate degrees at
one of nine state universi
ties.
N. C. Central University
and other state HBCUs,
including Elizabeth City
State, Fayetteville State and
N. C. A & T, were awarded a
grant from the UNC system
to encourage minority males
graduating from local com
munity colleges to transfer
to a 4-year institution.
Last Tuesday about 35
men from Durham
Technical Community
College and Vance-Granville
Community College visited
NCCU to get a taste of HBCU
life.
The men toured the cam
pus with University
Centennial scholars and stu
dent leaders of Alpha Phi
Alpha Fraternity, Inc. and
attended workshops on top
ics like mentorship and
■ See MINORITY Page 2