- Inspirational speakers highlight MLK celebration
January 18, 2012 – The opening convocation speaker at Valparaiso University’s 23rd annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration asked the audience to reflect on Martin Luther King the activist, before he became a legend.
“I find it useful to remember Martin Luther King in the days before his fame, the days of the boycott. The days when he was just a man who really believed,” Tim King said.
More than 1,000 people attended the convocation at the Chapel of the Resurrection to join in community and hear speaker Tim King, President and CEO of Urban Prep Academies.
After jokingly taking a photo of the crowd to convince his mother that a large number of people came to hear him speak, he reminded the audience that the success of Urban Prep Academies has been achieved not because of him, but because of the students. The students may be overwhelmed when they first attend the academy, he said, but Tim King asks them to take the first steps and believe in the same way that Martin Luther King believed.
Tim King spoke about remembering the sacrifices of those who came before us and paying it forward to those whom we may never meet. Our work is for the future, not for the present, he said. He reminded those in attendance to love everyone, even those we do not know, just as Martin Luther King did.
He celebrated past students who showed great character and honored the loss of a bright, former student who passed away at the age of 29.
“The lives that our students lead determine their character,” Tim King said. “Our 100 percent college acceptance rate is only part of our success.” Tim King said intelligence and character must go together and intelligence without character creates the wrong kind of change.
Every day the students at Urban Prep Academies recite the quote, “We believe in ourselves, we believe in each other, we believe in Urban Prep. We believe.”
Urban Prep Academies is an all-male charter public high school in Chicago founded in 2006. On average about 85 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, 15 percent have special needs, and more than 85 percent enter high school reading below grade level. Yet, King said, every member of the first and second graduating classes at Urban Prep Academy have gained admission to a four-year college.
Chen calls for a focus on education to carry on King’s legacy
It is through education that we can become the nation we aspire to be, Iris Chen told those in attendance at Monday’s closing remarks during Valparaiso University’s MLK Day festivities.
Chen, the president and CEO of the I Have a Dream Foundation, began her address at the Christopher Center Community Room with an overview of the struggles and accomplishments that made her who she is today. As a Yale and Harvard grad, Chen had high aspirations after college. She started as a charter corps member with Teach For America in New York City, where she taught fourth- and fifth-graders for three years at P.S. 307 in Brooklyn. She elaborated on the poor living environments, high poverty rates, and how those conditions affected her students.
“Only one out of two students would graduate from high school,” Chen said.
Chen was determined to give her students a better chance at a future.
“Every single one of my students had a passion,” she said.
She also discussed how the Knowledge is Power Program, a national network of free open-enrollment college-preparatory schools in under-resourced communities throughout the United States, has exceeded expectations by having more than 100 schools with a 90 percent college acceptance rate by students.
Chen focused on our past educational achievements and how future generations are the new frontier to inspiring education throughout the nation.
“Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. built a strong foundation for success towards education, and it is our turn to take over the reigns and continue his values,” she said.
