Feb2012Newsletter

Bridges to Success Newsletter

Candy Gram!The Bridges to Success mentoring program students decided to spread a little cheer this Valentine’s Day, February 14th. The Staff As-sistants on all Valencia campuses were provid-ed with Hershey Kisses packaged with a thank you note of appreciation reading, “On behalf of the Bridges to Success Mentoring Program, we thank you for your consistent hard work and dedication to helping us reach success. You are greatly appreciated. Have a great day!”

The Candy Grams are an annual tradition for the BTS program and this year was not differ-ent. Representatives of REGAL, IMAGES, MOSAIC, LATINA, and ELITE hand deliv-ered a small token of appreciation to campus staff assistants and all were grateful for recog-nition and wished the Bridges students contin-ued success. The mentoring program students understand the importance of saying thank you, even in small ways, and the students also realize that their continued success depends on a village of people supporting them.

AA Heritage-Soul Food Fest 2012

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Mandatory MeetingOsceola Auditorium

Mandatory MeetingWest HSB-105

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February-March 2012

Bridges AwardsGraduate Recognition



The 19th Annual BHACRecognition CeremonyBy Lovelyne ToussaintOn March 15th 2012 the Black Higher Achievers Club formally known as BHAC hosted their annual Achieversrecognition Ceremony. This ceremony was created 19 years ago by the club founder Mr. John Stover. The ceremony was established to recognize African American students with a GPA of 3.0 or higher, and who exemplifies high academic achievement. Many students proudly attended and received a certifi-cate recognizing them for their efforts.

The President of Valencia College West Campus graced the ceremony with her presence and offered words of encourage-ment to the audience. Other presenters such as Kwame Walker who is a Valencia College and Bridges to Success graduate offered the honorees encouraging words about the road that he himself has once traveled and how perseverance & hard work goes a long way. Honoree Danielle Jordan told The Bridge that the program was lovely, and she was very happy to be a part of it, her family really enjoyed the event. After the awards had been given out the honorees and their families enjoyed refreshments and music and cel-ebrated their great success.


A Powerful JourneyBy Aaron Davison

January 2012-The Chance of a Life-timeMy name is Aaron Davison and I attend Valencia College majoring in Journalism. I serve as the secretary for the male-men-toring program, I.M.A.G.E.S. (Influential Men Applying Gifts Employing Strate-gies) that is connected to the wonderful “Bridges To Success” program. Over a month ago at a meeting for I.M.A.G.E.S., the Director of Bridges To Success, Dr. Tanisha D. Carter announced the annual trip to Tampa, FL for the “Black, Brown and College Bound” national conference that takes place over the course of 3 days. The brothers (what we call each other in I.M.A.G.E.S.) raised their hand to partici-pate and attend this trip.

When Dr. Carter stated that there was a chance that two students might not be to go on the trip, I raised my hand. Because I thought this one trip would create op-portunities for me as well as network with some important people. So, everything was finalized for me to go on the trip.

When the day drew closer, I was get-ting excited while my mom was getting nervous. Every teenager knows how their moms can be when they go on a trip with a group of friends and she is not with you along the way. However, she overcame her fears and thought it was best for me and that this trip would benefit me a lot. Even though I was going to the trip whether she was scared or not!

Day 1-The ArrivalNow the day has arrived and I got all my baggage with me as the rest of I.M.A.G.E.S. is ready to hit the road to Tampa. As most people tend to do on a lengthy road trip, they sleep and take a nap. It was funny when one of the guys would fall asleep because we would all take pictures of that one guy sleeping and just laugh about it. Then, before I know it, we made it to the luxurious Grand Hyatt Hotel that is right next to the beach of Tampa. Sounds like paradise does it? Well we weren’t here to go to the beach, we were here for business.

Following checking in with the hotel and setting up our rooms, we all headed down for the reception that kicked the festivities off for the conference. It had a profes-sional atmosphere in the room with wait-ers walking around with all types of food (Shrimp, Cheese, Chicken Wings, etc.) and people of importance that were taking part in the conference having discussions with us. I don’t know about you, but this was the best welcoming party that I have ever been too! I mean it felt like I was

treated like some sort of V.I.P. Anyway, the opening ceremony soon followed the reception where the people of Hillsbor-ough Community College and the Mayor of Tampa briefly introduced everyone to the conference and the purpose of what was bound to happen.

This year’s theme for the 6th Annual Summit of the “Black, Brown and Col-lege Bound” conference was “And Still We Rise: Turning Hurdles Into Triumphs for African American & Latino Males”. This strong message is something that needs to be put out into our society today. For example, in the first workshop or as the conference would call these workshops as “Concurrent Sessions” I attended focused on how African Americans were treated in the 1900s where they were beaten and tor-tured on ships just by the color of the skin.

The presenter as he was showing graphic photos and demonstrating the different tools used to punish the innocent turned my stomach and found it quite disturbing. It made me wonder why did this happen? The answer is there is no reason that is acceptable to why this occurred back in those times. The good lord up above made us all equal inside no matter what the color of skin is and above all, he made us all hu-man. We are all the same. Next, I went to hear Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe speak who is the founder and current Executive Director of the Student African American Brotherhood (SAAB) Organization and he earned two degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Master from Mississippi State University. Also, Dr. Bledsoe completed a Ph.D. in Counseling and Student Affairs Administration with an emphasis in Counseling Psychology at the University of Georgia.

Dr. Bledsoe was the most motivational speakers I have ever heard as he was funny and inspiring. He expressed that success is a must, a will and a can. There was some startling reports on students and education as only 29% of US citizens have a college


degree according to USA Today. Which means students who attend college do not finish and earn a degree because of not the expenses of attending a higher institution of learning but rather low self-confidence. I found this shocking when this research was shown. Dr. Bledsoe did explain the theory as it pertains to the younger genera-tion who want to succeed. The student that wants success will sit right in front and center of the classroom since students sitting in the back of the classroom will not succeed in their education.

Dr. Tyrone Bledsoe was an amazing indi-vidual to hear and watching him interact with the audience having a heart to heart conversation with everybody in the room. The concurrent session that followed Dr. Bledsoe’s was a presentation from MK Asante, a Professor of Creative Writing and Film in the Department of English and Language Arts at Morgan State Uni-versity in Baltimore, Maryland. He is an award-winning author and filmmaker. A recipient of the Langston Hughes Award and wrote the critically-acclaimed book, “It’s Bigger Than Hip-Hop”. Asante attended the University of London and earned a BA degree from Lafayette Col-lege and an MFA degree from the UCLA School of Film and Television.

Asante’s speech was on a generation that rises with corporate Hip-Hop behind

them and embarking on an adventure that will bring change to pop culture and the world. At first, I really thought this speaker was going to discuss the music genre of Hip-Hop. But it turns out that he took the word of Hip-Hop and gave it a new meaning to inspire others. At this point, I was admiring all of the speakers for their message they were trying to get across and I think they successfully got that important message across.

Day 2-Networking DinnerOne of your goals when attending a na-tional conference is to obtain connections. There are literally hundreds of business people around you so don’t be shy and introduce yourself to them. You never know what kind of connections you may get maybe even a job opportunity! For the students who were shy, they had no choice as every student that was at the conference went to a student networking dinner that

gave students their chance at connecting to an actual person in their career field. Tables were set up that would have a person from your desired career. These careers included Journalism, Business Management, Me-chanical Engineering and more.

My career choice is Journalism and I searched for the table that coincided with my career. The only table that I found was Dayle Greene who is a Employment Security Representative II for the Tampa Bay Workforce and has his own radio talk show on WDUV. It was me and two other students having an interesting conversation with this very educated and intelligent indi-vidual. After we had all finish our meet and greet over dinner, we found out that we all had the same career choice. Some would be a career in Journalism for TV and radio and mine would be just TV. Mr. Greene recommended me to get in contact with his daughter Tiffany Greene who works for the BrightHouse Sports Network. He ref-ereed me to her as a source for an insight on the world of Journalism and provided me with her e-mail address.

I thanked Mr. Greene so much for this opportunity. I am proud to say when I e-mailed Ms. Greene introducing who I was and why I was contacting her in regards to a tour of the studio because my career interest is being a Broadcast Journalist. She responded by stating that she would be glad to take me on a tour of the studios and maybe even taking me on a news trip with her! If I had not met her father, Dayle Greene I would have never gotten this opportunity. You can say my time at the student networking dinner was a success indeed.

Day 3-And We Still RiseFinally, the final day of the conference was here and it was time to conclude this powerful and moving conference. The morning started out with hot beverages being served to the guests to give them energy for the day. Roundtables were set


up in the ballroom and you would choose to sit at any table where a representative from corporations and companies from all around Florida and the local Tampa area. This is where I met Mr. Jason P. Quiara who is the Senior Project Manager, State Policy Development and Advocacy for the JFF (Jobs For The Future) organization. It is a organization helping students transfer from high school to college by providing the option to the student to take college level classes while attending high school as an 11th grader, which will prepare the student to be at the college level upon en-tering a community college or university. Also, when the student is going to college, this program will have the student get a job opportunity.

The goal behind the Jobs For The Fu-ture organization is to follow the words that President Barack Obama once said “Tonight, I ask every American to com-mit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself. It’s quitting on your country; and this country needs and values the talents of every Ameri-can.” It was great to be introduced to an individual who is apart of something that helps students to succeed and a reason to attend college. Later, I.M.AG.E.S. was one of the concurrent sessions and held a presentation to give an overview of the organization from the West Campus Valencia College.

I.M.A.G.E.S. is a group of real men who have had struggles in the real world and now they come together as one to help not only each other to succeed in their academic careers but to make a difference in the local community. The Advisor of Bridges To Success, Dr. Sylvester Rob-

inson lead the presentation sharing with the audience a background history on the organization. Back in 2007, I.M.AG.E.S. was born and has since then grow more and more as the years go on with addi-tion of members being inducted into this prestigious organization. Every person in I.M.AG.E.S. is known as a brother who is in a brotherhood and each brother has a mentor (big brother) that will help their assigned brother with studies and tutoring.

Once the incoming new brothers are in-ducted into I.M.A.G.E.S. this summer, the older brothers will become the mentors of the younger brothers keeping the lega-cy of I.M.A.G.E.S. alive that is to be “In-fluential Men Applying Gifts Employing Strategies”. Afterward, we held a question and answer session and the audience were just amazed at the variety of activities that I.M.A.G.E.S. does and how close we all are. The Brunch Plenary followed imme-diately after the I.M.A.G.E.S. presentation and there was a buffet of breakfast and lunch items. A teenager’s dream! What did I do? I filled up my plate!

Once I was satisfied with the food on my plate, I walked into the ballroom and sat down with my I.M.AG.E.S. brothers eat-ing what was the best array of food I have ever eaten. The closing ceremonies were ready to begin as the people behind this amazing conference thanked everyone for coming out and spending the last three days being inspired and changed with the guest speakers and the concurrent ses-sions. The last speaker to give a speech was Dr. Charles Robinson. He is a Vice Provost for Diversity Affairs and Profes-sor of History at the University of Arkan-sas. Received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in History at University of Houston and graduated with Honors.

A Master’s Degree in History and a Ph.D. at the University of Houston. Mr. Robin-son covers a wide range of topics and has been requested by many universities and

professional organizations to speak. I can see why he has been in popular demand because his speech was something I will never forget and will remember for the rest of my life. Dr. Charles Robinson reminded me so much of the late great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. because of what he said and what he stood for which was that African-Americans and Latino males must still rise above the hate and must achieve in life and have success in school. He gave the strongest message I had heard out of the many speakers who spoke at the conference.

As the conference came to a close, I was a changed man and now I want to suc-ceed more than ever. Also, being white does not matter because I strongly believe that ever man out there whether black, or brown can find success anywhere they go because we are all the same as god created us all equal inside. In conclusion, as an after thought of this conference, the one saying that rings true to my heart is “And we still rise”.


ENTERTAINMENTMovies Review By Roberto Gonzalez

Chronicle

Every boy, and some girls, has always wanted powers. They wanted to fly, move things with their minds, or just beat up the people they don’t like. All of these were shown in a darker nature in the movie “Chronicle.”

The movie is based around 3 teenagers: Matt, Steve, and Andrew, and it is seen through the lens of a camera throughout the entire movie. The story revolves mainly around the boy Andrew, a senior in high school who has to deal with some of the worst things life can offer. He is an anti-social outcast who is mocked by the jocks of the school. In his home life, his mother is gravely ill and his father abuses him. He runs from reality as much as he can, and his luck is turned around on the night of a party his cousin Matt brought him to.

Throughout the night, he is picked on by others from the high school and he runs

away again. Along the way, he is called out by the popular guy, Steve, and he is asked to bring his camera to a cool place. Andrew, Matt, and Steve all find this hole that leads to some weird object that gives them the abilities of Telekinesis. From there, their powers become stronger, and a friendship forms between the 3.

As the story continues, Andrew is sent into a spiral of confidence and friends that seem too good to last. However, all the hostility of his life comes back and trans-forms Andrew into a monster. His powers continue to grow stronger, and it eventu-ally destroys a part of the happy life he had obtained. Andrew continued to slowly grow a ‘Magneto-complex’ and the story continues to crash down from there.

This movie was an incredible piece that I enjoyed. It showed the aspects of power, becoming cocky by it, and the eventual destruction of life by said powers. It showed the darker parts of our world that most of us have ignored, and it showed what monsters could be born from those parts. The movie left me shocked beyond belief and it opened my eyes to an aspect of super-powered beings (and the birth of villains) I had never seen until this film. I would strongly suggest this film to anyone who wants to see a change of pace from the superhero films we see everywhere today.

The Life & Death of Whitney HoustonBy Nicole AbodoWhitney Elizabeth Houston was born on August 09, 1963 in Newark, New Jersey. The famous icon almost seemed destined from birth to become a singer. Houston grew up singing in the church with her mother Cissy Houston and her cousin Dionne Warrick, who were all legendary figures in gospel music. It was not long after Houston’s childhood years singing in front of the congregation at her church, New Hope Baptist Church that she would get her big break.

By the time Houston was 15 years old, she was already performing at various events with her mother, and was deter-mined to get a record deal of her own. Even though Houston was one of the first African American women to brace the cover of Seventeen magazine, music remained her primary focus.

Four years later, Houston was discovered by music mogul Clive Davis of Arista Records. In 1985, Houston made her of-ficial debut into the music industry with her self-titled album Whitney Houston, which immediately became a success. Over the next ten years, Houston had back to back hits such as “You Give Me


Good Love,” Saving All My Love for You,” and “I Will Always Love You,” selling over 13 million copies.

As quick as Houston rose to fame, she began going on a downward spiral of destruction. After marrying legend R&B singer Bobby Brown in 1992, the pressure of marriage, fame, and depression lead to a series of drugs, abuse, and denial.

In 2007, Houston ended her 15 year mar-riage to Brown, and was in the process of planning her comeback album. Two years later her comeback album titled I Look to You left her mark into the music. During that same year, Houston toured around the world, but it came to a disappointment to a lot of her fans.

Whitney Houston starred in the remake of the 1976 musical called “Sparkle,” which was set to premiere in August. Un-fortunately, Houston died on February 11, 2012, the night before The Grammy’s. She will always be remembered for her incred-ible voice and charismatic personality.

R.I.P. Whitney HoustonEvery generation, there are two types of singers. There are those who just make music and stay mediocre for their entire careers, and then there are the true artists that become legends throughout the next few generations of listeners. In my life-time, I have heard stories of Elvis Presley-the King of Rock-and only seen videos that showed how he earned that title. I had actually experienced the legend of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson before he passed on too. But I’m not talking about the Kings that have passed. Today, we are mourning the passing of another legend. A legend that lost her way but never com-pletely found her way back. Her name was Whitney Houston.

Whitney Houston was born in New Jersey on August 9, 1963. She was raised in the


Baptist Church (and Pentecostal Church), where she sang gospel during her early childhood. During her teenaged years, she traveled around with her mother to nightclubs and occasionally performed with her. Her career continued as she later became a backup singer for different artists, like Chaka Khan.

In the 1980’s, she started a career as a fashion model and became one of the first colored women to appear on a fash-ion magazine cover. She signed her first record deal in ’83 and had her first taste of musical success after performing a duet Teddy Pendergrass, which later put her as a Top 5 R&B hit. Her debut album came out in 1985.

Her rise to fame stayed strong for many years to come. In 1989, she started a rela-tionship with Bobby Brown. Three years later, they were married, and two years after that, she had her first child.

Houston’s first movie role came from the film The Bodyguard in 1992. Although it would seem she would only get better, Whitney started to change throughout the ‘90’s. She would behave differently and show up late for rehearsals. Some times they had to cancel her appearance or she would never show up. Rumors began to spread that she was starting to take drugs with her husband. Her figure started to become skinnier and her voice was deteriorating. Her agency passed if off as a number of different things. In 2002, Whitney confessed to substance use on an interview with Diane Sawyer. In 2005, a reality show about her husband (called Being Bobby Brown) started and showed less flattering parts of their inner life. The show never made it to a second season.

Whitney filed a divorce with Bobby Brown in 2006, and it was finalized in 2007. In 2009, Whitney confessed to drug abuse during her time with her former husband. She attempted another tour (Nothing but

Love World Tour), but due to some cancel-lations and disappointing appearances, it received massive negative feedback.

Whitney Houston was found submerged in a bathtub on February 11, 2012. Police said that there was “no obvious signs of criminal intent”. Many believe that she overdosed, although it hasn’t been 100% confirmed. On February 19, 2012, Whitney was buried in Fairview Cemetery in New Jersey. She was buried next to her father.

Whitney Houston was a legendary singer who destroyed herself with drugs. Despite her mistakes, she tried to make a come-back and fought the entire way to clean up her act. She was a brave woman and one of the best singers of the past 50 years. In the end, she is still a legend. Even now, her music is an eternal legacy of who she was, and who she will be for future gen-erations: a queen of music.

“Linsanity”By Nicole AbodoIn February 2012, Jeremy Lin led an incredible winning streak for the New York Knicks, which generated a global phenomenon known as “Linsanity.” Lin was born on August 23, 1988 in Palo Alto, California. After being undrafted out of college, the Harvard graduate managed to get a partial deal with the Golden State Warriors. Lin played his rookie season with Golden State, and was later assigned to the Developmental League also known as the D-League. Lin joined the Knicks early in the 2011-2012 after being waived by Golden State. Critics underestimated Lin’s talents for many reasons, but as the season progresses Lin shows signs of leadership, skills, and perseverance.


The Bridge Team

Aaron Davison

Chacoryia BurnsRoberto Gonzalez

Nicole Abodo

Lovelyne Toussaint

Jonathan Tenjo-Palacios

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Feb2012Newsletter