NORFOLK STATE UNIVERSITY® W A A V E E S S MAKING February 2014, issue 25 Achieving Excellence. Success Beyond Measure. a Newsletter for Faculty, Staff, alumni and Friends of Norfolk State University w hen Donald Blake first arrived on the Norfolk State campus in 1970 as a 17-year-old freshman, the library was housed in Tidewater Hall (now Brown Hall), Twin Towers where he stayed was the newest dormitory, the old student union had just opened and houses stood on what is now the Marty Miller Baseball Field. That was nearly 45 years ago. Now as the 62-year-old Blake, a mason plasterer in Facilities Management, prepares to retire, the campus has drastically changed. He has witnessed the construction of most of the buildings on campus. “NSU has grown and it has prospered,” he said. Today, the campus includes several recently built structures such as the Lyman Beecher Brooks Library, Student Center, Student Services Building and the nursing and classroom building They clean our buildings, paint and patch our walls, move our furniture, and maintain our grounds and keep up our buildings and systems. They are the men and women who make up the Department of Facilities Management. This special issue of Making waves is dedicated to those who form the foundation of Norfolk State University and take care of us. Continued on page 4 TeLL US wHaT yoU THiNk aBoUT Making Waves. Take the survey. Blake Leaves His Mark on NSU Click Here
Transcript
NORFOLK STATE UNIVERSITY®
WWAAVVEESSMAKING
February 2014, issue 25
Achieving Excellence. Success Beyond Measure.
a Newsletter for Faculty, Staff, alumni and Friends of Norfolk State University
when Donald Blake first arrived
on the Norfolk State campus
in 1970 as a 17-year-old
freshman, the library was housed in
Tidewater Hall (now Brown Hall),
Twin Towers where he stayed was
the newest dormitory, the old
student union had just opened and
houses stood on what
is now the Marty Miller Baseball Field.
That was nearly 45 years ago.
Now as the 62-year-old Blake, a mason
plasterer in Facilities Management,
prepares to retire, the campus has
drastically changed. He has witnessed the
construction of most of the buildings on
campus. “NSU has grown
and it has prospered,” he said. Today,
the campus includes several recently built
structures such as the Lyman Beecher Brooks
Library, Student Center, Student Services
Building and the nursing and classroom building
They clean our buildings, paint and patch our walls, move ourfurniture, and maintain our grounds and keep up our buildings and systems. They are the men and women who make up theDepartment of Facilities Management. This special issue ofMaking waves is dedicated to those who form the foundation of Norfolk State University and take care of us.
Continued on page 4
TeLL US wHaT yoUTHiNk aBoUT Making Waves.Take thesurvey.
She has spent her career there, first as a painter while on her tour of duty
for the U.S. Navy, in civilian life while working for painting contractors
and as a store paint associate at a Home Depot.
Tan has endured some discrimination in the past because of her gender.
During her past work experiences, there have been co-workers who have told
her that because she’s a woman that she doesn’t know anything about
painting. Now, she seems unfazed by that because she also knows that being a
commercial woman painter has its advantages. “When I worked at Home
Depot, a lot of women would come to me and ask me what I
thought,” she said. “They felt more comfortable talking to
another woman.”
However, Tan, on staff at NSU since 2005, is right at
home as the single female among the University’s three
painters. “I work with two excellent guys,” she said of
her supervisor Melvin Veale and co-worker
Haywood Bennett.
She takes a sense of pride in her work.
Every wall Tan paints at NSU, she treats it as
if it were her own. “I can walk in and paint
your office and walk out, but you have to
look at it every day,” said Tan. “So, I do
the job as if it were my house or
my office.”
Nancy Tan is used to being a woman in a man’s world.
woman Painter Right at Home at NSU
NSU’s Storm Troopers
Christopher D. Samuels
Mike Jones and Lorita walton
elease Powell
william Thomas Smith
3Making Waves
NSU Police Chief
anthony H. walker
has been selected as
a primary negotiator
by the U.S.
Department of
Education for the
purpose of representing HBCU’s and
Minority Serving Institutions (MSI’s) in
a series of sessions that will be held in
Washington, D.C. The purpose of
these sessions is to prepare and
propose legislation to address
changes to the Clery Act regulated by
the U.S. Department of Education,
and the Campus Crime Statistics Act
made by the Violence Against Women
Reauthorization Act of 2013 (VAWA).
Chief Walker will be in Washington,
D.C. twice per month from January–
March to attend committee meetings.
Dr. James Corprew, assistant
professor of business, served as a
chairman and also presented a
research paper entitled "Concerns
and Expectations of Hospitality
Management Students" at the
Institute of Strategic and International
Studies International Conference in
January. The paper is co-authored by
Dr. Jim Chen, department chair
and associate dean of the School of
Business, and Dr. Melinda Harris-
Peoples, assistant professor of
entrepreneurship. The paper has
also been accepted for publication in
the Journal of Academy for
Advancement of Business Research.
Hollisha Bridgers, ’07, School of
Education graduate, was recognized
as the 2014 Teacher of the Year at the
Pennsylvania Avenue School in
Atlantic City, N.J., where she teaches.
Dr. Sandra J.
DeLoatch, provost
and vice president
of academic affairs;
Dr. arletha
McSwain, professor
and dean of the
School of Extended Learning; and
Dr. adebisi
oladipupo, chief
information officer
and professor
of engineering,
have been invited
to present at the
2014 USA Funds Symposium at the
Scottsdale Conference Center in
Phoenix, during Session 3: Giving
Your Students a Competitive Edge
with Technology. In addition,
Dr. oladipupo has successfully
completed two certifications:
CompTia Project+ and the ITIL
Foundation Certificate in IT
Service Management.
Dr. Page Laws,
dean of the Honors
College, gave a talk:
“Fred Astaire: Our
American Mozart
of Motion” for
Westminster-
Canterbury residents in January.
Honors College
student ida
Thompson, political
science, had a
research proposal
accepted by a
research think tank
and network—The Mississippi Center
for Intelligence and Security Studies.
Will present her research at The Five
Eyes Analytic Workshop at the
University of Mississippi in Oxford,
Miss., in March.
Dr. Geoffroy de
Laforcade, associate
professor of history,
was a featured
presenter at the
Public Speakers Series
at Atlanta University.
His talk was titled “Liberation by
Labyrinth: Walter Rodney’s Pedagogy
of Caribbean History.”
Dr. kai Zhang,’11 (above center), NSU’s first Ph.D. recipient in materialsscience and engineering, recently won the 2013-14 Council of HistoricallyBlack Graduate Schools/ProQuest Dissertation Award. His dissertationresults have been published in more than 30 peer-reviewed journals. Dr.Zhang received his award and gave a presentation on his dissertation,“Development of Magnetic and Optic Nanomaterials for BiomedicalApplications,” at the CHBGS conference in San Antonio.
CaMPUS BRieFS
anthony walker
Dr. Sandra Deloatch
Dr. adebisi oladipupo
Dr. Page Laws
Dr. Geoffroy Laforcade
ida Thompson
scheduled to open in January 2015. He has seen buildings such as the
Lyman Beecher Brooks Library and the Student Center torn down and rebuilt.
Blake has spent more than 70 percent of his life going to school and
working here, and he has left his mark on this campus. In fact, one of the
most enduring sites where his work can be seen is the President’s House.
As a student in the Vocational Education Department, Blake and fellow
students were called upon to help build the President’s House. His name is
engraved along with the others on a plaque near the home’s front door. “Back
then I took it as another assignment,” said Blake. “Now I look at it as one of my
great accomplishments.” Other buildings where Blake did block work included
the former Lyman Beecher Brooks Library and the Hamm Fine Arts Building.
He has given Norfolk State 39 years of work service, beginning in an hourly
position as a brick mason in 1975 and then becoming classified as a master
plasterer five years later in 1980. Norfolk State has given him something too--
from receiving his degree to meeting his wife, Shirley, whom he met in the
lobby of Twin Towers South in 1974. They were married in 1976.
Blake is astounded at the university’s growth and proud to have some part
in it. “It’s amazing,” he said. “I think I will miss Norfolk State for a while, but I am
going to enjoy my retirement.”
Blake Has Left His Mark Continued from page 1
Facilities Management@workTo the men and women of Facilities Management
