Since 2008, A²MEND has hosted an annual African American Male Summit in Los Angeles, where more than 1,000 policymakers, trustees, faculty, staff, administrators and students come together to identify solutions to the barriers that African American men face in community colleges.
The mission of the conference is to counteract the dismal forecast of the African American male in higher education by focusing on the institution’s role. Institutions of higher learning play a pivotal role in the education, leadership, support and engagement of these students. Various keynote speakers, presenters and facilitators provide interactive workshops throughout the conference that culminates into the development of realistic strategies and concrete recommendations that can be put into practice in our community colleges to address African American male success outcomes.
The annual summit also presents a job fair, Women’s Leadership Institute, and HBCU College Fair.
At the conference, there were workshops that taught us success in the classroom and our educational and career journey, motivation from seeing a board full of Doctors well into their careers that were all males of African-American Descent, and we even had the opportunity to hear a keynote speech from Fonzworth Bentley who made us aware that we were all the CEOs of our own lives. With all the motivation and knowledge received from the conference, I was able to complete my first semester at Moreno Valley College with a 4.0 GPA.
–Amofah Brobbey, A²MEND Mentee