Connecting with Cedric Jennings

First-year students eager to talk with featured speaker Cedric Jennings at the Connections Convocation August 24 readily addressed him by his first name. After all, they felt as if they already knew the first-time Utah visitor, having read a detailed account of his latter high school years and his first year of college.

 

“People are always running up to me and saying, ‘I know you,’ and it’s weird but it lets me know that sharing my personal experience was not in vain,” said Jennings, who is the subject of Ron Suskind’s Pulitzer Prize-winning narrative, A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League.

 

Published in 1998, the book evolved from a series of articles Suskind wrote for the Wall Street Journal, in which he followed Jennings’ journey as a beleaguered honor student from a blighted Washington, D.C., public high school through his first year at Brown University.

 

Participants in the university’s Connections program, composed of more than half of the freshman class, read Suskind’s book as their summer assignment. The students welcomed Jennings with rousing applause as he took the stage in Kent Concert Hall.

 

The Connections program, held the week prior to the start of fall semester classes, is designed to ease the transition of incoming freshmen to the university environment and equip them with skills that promote academic success. The reading assignment, called “Summer Literature Experience,” was initiated this year to establish a “common experience” among program participants, explained Noelle Call, director of Utah State’s Academic Resource Center.

 

“The shared reading brings all Connections students immediately into an intellectual experience similar to future academic activities at Utah State,” said Call. “New students develop a sense of community with their new environment.”

 

This year’s reading selection resonated with incoming students, who identified with Jennings’ struggles against negative peer pressure, culture shock, stereotypes, and daunting academic challenges. Convocation participants laughed when Jennings recounted his decision, upon entering Brown, to refrain from drinking, smoking, premarital sex and to not associate with people who did those things.

 

“Needless to say, I didn’t have any friends,” said Jennings.

 

He added that, while college brings new fears and anxieties, “it’s a good thing to be tested.”

 

“You need to reach outside your comfort zone,” said Jennings. “You don’t have to compromise your beliefs to interact with others. Just because we have different beliefs doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

 

Jennings said that diversity hinges on the willingness to share your own personal experiences.

 

“Sometimes I wondered what a black kid like me was doing at Brown,” he said. “I felt intimidated and questioned whether or not I was worthy of being there.”

 

Then a revelation came as Jennings sat in a predominately white class, listening to his classmates debate the problems of inner-city minority schools. Realizing they had no experiences on which to base their assertions, Jennings said he blurted out, “You not gonna sit there and say black folks don’t value education.”

 

“I finally understood that my experiences were important to others,” he recounted. “By sharing our thoughts and the obstacles we’ve overcome, we enrich others.”

 

Taking questions from Connections participants, Jennings said he thought parental involvement in education was a key component in improving academic opportunities for at-risk youth. “My mom’s faith in me and the sacrifices she made are the reason for my success,” he said.

 

Jennings, now 29 and a clinical social worker in his native D.C., said he presented his master’s diploma, earned at Harvard, to his mother because “I figured it was as much her degree as mine.”

 

One student, who said his relationship with his father mirrored Jennings’, asked if having a dad who was involved in drugs and in and out of jail was ultimately a hindrance or a motivating factor to his success. Jennings replied that, during his early years, the unstable relationship was primarily a “weight” and led to rebelliousness that got him thrown out of a promising magnet school. In time, however, his father’s example was a powerful lesson.

 

“My father was very intelligent and I gradually came to understand the obstacles before him,” said Jennings. “I learned from his experiences.”

 

Another student, referring to Jennings’ penchant for gospel singing, hip-hop, and rap, well documented in Suskind’s book, asked if he’d sing for the group.

 

Jennings politely declined, “No, no, I don’t do that. Let’s not go there.”

 

 

Contact: Noelle Call, noelle.call@usu.edu, (435) 797-1194

Writer: Mary-Ann Muffoletto, maryann.muffoletto@usu.edu, (435) 797-1429