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Darril Vilbrun took the scenic route to earning his degree at Cheyney University. The Reading, PA, native will graduate this spring with a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies with a concentration in business and a minor in computer science. He believes his ambition to reach success started – and will persist – because of Cheyney.

Vilbrun first enrolled at Cheyney after graduating high school in 2009. Shortly thereafter, he determined he wasn’t quite ready for college and wanted to explore the workforce. His path led him to join the United States Marine Corps Reserve. After basic training at Parris Island in South Carolina and combat training at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, Vilbrun found an interest in computers as part of his military occupational skills.

“I was always interested in pursuing a career revolving around computers, but I could never pinpoint my interest until joining the Marine Corps,” said Vilbrun. “The Marines also gave me six years of training and technical skills.”

Taking his skills to the next level led him to Reading Area Community College where he earned an associate degree in computer information systems. Being a reservist kept him free of student loan debt and allowed him to pursue a bachelor’s degree to enable him to fulfill his professional goals.

He rediscovered Cheyney was the university to help him complete his educational goal.

“I took my younger cousin who just graduated from high school on a tour of Cheyney. It was at that moment that the opportunity presented itself again for me,” said Vilbrun. “I met with Jackie Goode in Admissions and that really sparked the interest in returning to the campus where I initially started.”

After speaking with Goode, Vilbrun found additional support after meeting with Jeff Jones, Executive Director of Enrollment Management. Jones provided guidance for Vilbrun to obtain the Board of Governor’s tuition waiver.

Vilbrun said the Board of Governor’s tuition waiver covered everything but room and board. But Cheyney University wasn’t quite through yet offering resources.

“I became a resident advisor, and received a Pell grant to assist with my meal plan,” he said. “Jeff Jones and Jackie Goode saw I was serious about furthering my education.”

Serving as a resident advisor opens many doors at Cheyney and also in the professional world. The resident advisor position offers common work experience that helps students develop management skills, interpersonal relationships, and the ability to carry out projects. The resident advisor staff works closely with campus security and Public Safety to ensure the safety of students living in the residence halls, a perfect fit for a Marine reservist.

“I work with a lot of students and have arranged the tuition waiver for many who perform well academically in high school. Darril Vilbrun is among those who was deserving of this opportunity,” Jones said. “He’s a very focused young man. I have a habit of looking at people and asking them, ‘what are you doing about furthering your education?’ I knew when I met him that he’s a young man of good character. I’m very proud of him.”

Vilbrun clearly appreciates the opportunity Cheyney offered him, commenting more broadly that HBCU’s are an overlooked pathway for those on the journey of higher education.

“HBCU’s develop you more,” he said. “The support is genuine and there’s a unique culture at Cheyney University.”

“I feel I would want to work for Cheyney and be a part of developing it for the future – especially the STEM education programs. Cheyney has name recognition and that means something. The future of STEM education is going to open a lot of opportunities. Cheyney is going to be a part of that.”

Cheyney University alumna Renee Harris turned her love of science and technology into a STEM-focused pre-school.

The STEM Prep Academy (SPA), located in Philadelphia’s Fishtown section, is Harris’ effort to instill a love of the sciences in pre-school children and influence the education performance of the next generation.

“My interest in exposing children to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) came from my own love of science as a child, but I didn’t have the exposure,” Harris said. “I didn’t know about the different STEM careers that are out there. I opened SPA to bridge the gap of STEM achievement early on. I started Esteem Girls because of the lack of women in STEM fields.”

Harris was raised in West Philadelphia and is the first in her family to graduate from high school and college. She attended the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and majored in biology. She returned to the Philadelphia area and attended Montgomery County Community College, majoring in biology and participated in the STEM scholars program funded by the National Science Foundation. She worked in the pharmaceutical industry while obtaining a bachelor’s degree at Cheyney University full time. She graduated in 2015.

According to Harris, attending Cheyney University as a Keystone Honors student was a great experience. She graduated cum laude while working full time and raising a child. With the help of Dr. Tara Kent, the Keystone Honors dean at that time, and Dr. Lynn Green, professor of sociology, she made some amazing connections and had one-of-a-kind experiences.

“Dr. Kent and Dr. Green broadened my perspective when it came to sociology and making an impact in the community,” said Harris. “I had a scientific view in dealing with problems. Due to my sociology studies, I was able to research and apply a lot of data that established my career in providing STEM education.”

Harris started the non-profit STEM organization in 2016, Esteem Girls Inc, with the mission to help bridge the gap of STEM achievement by educating girls in grades 3 to 8th grade. Programs are hands-on interactive and explorative programs to increase girls’ enrollment in STEM fields. After realizing the great demand and success with Esteem Girls Inc., she started SPA in January 2021 and opened the school for boys and girls in preschool.

“It was always my goal to open a STEM-based pre-school once I got my non-profit launched and once I had enough support,” said Harris. “I started looking at different locations. The best opportunity was in Fishtown. I plan to expand SPA, adding kindergarten.”

“There is significant research showing a gender gap in STEM careers along with minimal representation of Black and Hispanic professionals in STEM fields,” said Harris.

According to a US Census Bureau report, women make up only 27% of all U.S. workers in STEM occupations. A 2018 Pew Research Center report further shows Black and Hispanic workers continue to be underrepresented in the STEM workforce. Blacks make up 11% of the U.S. workforce overall but represent 9% of STEM workers, while Hispanics comprise 16% of the U.S. workforce but only 7% of all STEM workers. And among employed adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher, Blacks are just 7% and Hispanics are 6% of the STEM workforce.

“My interest in starting the non-profit is owed to my diverse academic background in sociology and biology,” said Harris. “Learning biology gave me the skills of observation and experimentation. Studying sociology sharpened my skills to do research and collect data.”

According to Harris, the support she received from Cheyney staff and professors led to her starting her STEM non-profit and school. She also recommends every student explore the Keystone Honors program.

“Dr. Kent was always supportive and was there for me unconditionally during my studies,” said Harris. “She assisted me in narrowing my career focus, as I felt pulled in different directions. Dr. Green was extremely helpful in directing me how to focus on my career goals.”

Dr. Lynn Green professor of sociology at Cheyney said Renee Harris impressed her from the time of their first meeting in 2012.

“She was a focused, motivated and talented student with a clear sense of direction to a career she would be passionate about,” Dr. Green said. “In our Senior Seminar, she played a pivotal role as a leader in the classroom. I am in no way surprised to see the remarkable work she is doing for young women and I am sure she will continue to use her talent and energy to improve our communities and contribute to a more just society.”

Azarriah Lovett, left, and Rosalyn Henderson, right, leads the university’s vital safety net program, discusses racial equality and homelessness

Enduring leadership is a quality that permeates across Cheyney University’s community, providing students with an environment to achieve their full academic and personal potential.  This value extends to students of all socio-economic backgrounds.

For Rosalyn Henderson, Cheyney’s TRIO Student Support Services Director, it’s about reaching students in need with a hand up and empowering them to overcome personal challenges and realize their maximum potential.

Henderson, who holds a master’s degree in human services and is a Cheyney alumnae, oversees TRIO Student Support Services, a federally funded program that provides academic assistance to up to 284 eligible undergraduate students at the university. The goal is to help low-income and first-generation college students and/or college students with disabilities to succeed and earn their bachelor’s degree.

She along with other staff members know that some of the university’s students come from marginalized backgrounds and might need more resources and support than other students. According to Henderson, some students are not aware of the resources available to them, while others allow their pride to get in the way.

“When a student is struggling academically, you have to get to the root of the problem,” said Henderson. “I always tell people that we don’t want to be seen as giving hand-outs but a hand-up. People can tell the difference and when the hand-up is genuine.”

Henderson wants students who need support to keep coming. “They can grasp immediately that we’re here to help them. TRIO is not just academic support, but a holistic approach to student support services. When they graduate, they’ll be well prepared for success and the challenges life presents.”

Henderson, who joined Cheyney’s staff in 2009, noticed over the years students coming into her office who were hungry, and they were coming in on a regular basis.

“Normally we keep snacks and drinks and the number of students never decreased. We also saw that they needed other things, like personal hygiene items so in 2019 we began talking about it and started seeing the data.”

The statistics are alarming. According to a February 2020 New York Times report of a research study produced by The Hope Center, homelessness among American college students has become an increasingly visible problem. Other research has determined that more than a third of college students do not get enough to eat.

“What we learned from talking with our students was that you can have a meal plan and still be hungry,” said Henderson. “That is why in 2019 we created a food pantry that included fresh vegetables and fruits.”

The food pantry donations started small, but it didn’t take long for the contributions to increase. Then, the pandemic hit.

“We had about a hundred students who were still on campus and needed our help because the campus had limited operations,” said Henderson. “The donations were coming from organizations like Women in Media, Chester County Food Bank and the Salem Baptist Church, and then Cheyney alumni stepped up and so did Philabundance. The bottom line is if you’re food insecure you can’t focus on your education and have poor academic progress. This problem affects students of color at a much higher rate.”

One TRIO scholar who needed the additional support is Azarriah Lovett, 20. Lovett who has been a Cheyney student for three and a half years is a business administration and psychology major. She is one of the young women from a marginalized background for whom TRIO exists.

“In October 2019, my mother had to give up her house because of gentrification. The bills were too high,” Lovett said. “This was followed with months of other family problems.”

“I was sleeping on the couch and commuting four hours to work. I was eventually able to move back to campus housing and a few days later, I was hit by a car,” said Lovett.

Over time she recovered from her injuries, but then the pandemic hit.

“I was house hopping for months. Miss Roz (Henderson) helped me and provided networking opportunities, assistance with food and housing insecurity. She helped me find a job. I had friends that also helped me financially. Eventually I got an apartment with a friend. I do a lot of gig work and modeling casting calls. My time at Cheyney keeps me on track.”

Lovett’s situation is not uncommon, and one example described by Henderson who recently appeared as a guest speaker at the Feb. 25 webinar, Bombas Fireside Chat: Empowerment, Racial Equality, and Homelessness.  Henderson and other panelists discussed the intersection of empowerment and racial equity as it relates to homelessness. The discussion, Henderson said, was on the importance of Black Excellence, the need for equitable services, and the impact of female empowerment.

Henderson said since the pandemic, she thinks more and more people, organizations and corporations are coming together and working to alleviate the problems of food insecurity and homelessness.

“Part of the reason for that is the pandemic caused suffering among people who never had these problems before,” she said. “Can we do more? Yes, we can always do more. Homelessness and hunger should not exist.”

Cheyney’s TRIO Student Support Services program has allowed students like Lovett to realize her full potential. She is a youth and child advocate and works with the Latino social services organization Congresso and Women Organized Against Rape. She is set to graduate in the fall and is considering expanding her studies.

“The challenges I’ve faced haven’t broken me and the support and empowering resources I’ve received through Cheyney University have kept me together,” said Lovett.

Cheyney University’s Assistant Professor of Communication Arts Dr. Gooyong Kim has a unique point of view on South Korea’s modern culture, particularly its music known as K-Pop, short for Korean Pop.

The popular musical genre originated in South Korea and it is influenced by several different musical styles from around the world, such as rock, jazz, gospel, hip hop, R&B and reggae. The music videos are known for bright colors and entertaining choreography performed by boy bands and girl bands.

Dr. Kim’s first book, From Factory Girls to K-pop Idol Girls: Cultural Politics of Developmentalism, Patriarchy, and Neoliberalism in South Korea’s Popular Music Industry has drawn critical acclaim for its unique perspective on the changing mores of an Asian culture with a strong traditional social structure. The original hard cover was published February 2019.

“My book is the first, academic monograph that critically examines the various backgrounds and factors behind the recent global success of South Korean popular culture, especially focusing on an astronomical rise of female idol groups,” Kim said.

“Before my book, the scholars mainly paid attention to microscopic dimensions of the phenomenon such as textual analyses of music videos, choreographies, idols’ appearances, and the fandom. However, I examined the topic from macro, structural perspectives that made the success possible. This included the South Korean government’s policies, the industry’s business strategies, the country’s cultural legacy of Confucianism, nationalism and patriotism, transnational system of neoliberalism, and individual subjectification/ subjectivation by consuming popular culture.”

Since its original publication, his book has achieved an objective yardstick of success as an academic monograph. A review article on the book was published in Pacific Affair, the oldest and one of the most influential academic journals on the cultural, economic, political, and social issues in Asia and the Pacific.

Dr. Kim has been with Cheyney since the Spring 2015, joining the faculty as an adjunct professor and becoming a full-time tenure-track assistant professor in Spring 2016. One of his current courses is Communication Law and Ethics. The course focuses on laws related to mass communication and on the ethical and moral responsibilities of communication systems and of professional communicators.

He graduated from South Korea’s Chonnam National University in 2004 with a B.A. in Communication. He earned an M.A. in Communication (Broadcasting, Tele-Communication, and Mass Media) at Temple University in 2004-2006 and earned his Ph.D. in Cultural/ Media Studies and Media Literacy at UCLA.

“My college-level teaching career began in 2005 as a teaching assistant at Temple. After my Ph.D. and before coming to Cheyney, I taught various courses on Popular/ Media Culture, Mass Communication, and Asian Studies at Temple. During my college years at Chonnam National University, I was a Head Instructor at CNU Department of Communication Institute of Photojournalism.”

According to Dr. Kim, work on his book began in 2012 when Girls’ Generation, a South Korean idol girl group, made a network TV debut in the U.S. When he was at Temple University, his students were asking questions about the group and K-pop.

“I started to receive a lot of questions from my students at Temple; however, I did not know anything about the group or K-pop at that time,” he said. “So, in order to address my students’ questions, I decided to do a systematic research on the topic. I wrote a chapter on a different dimension of the topic in each semester. Before publishing the book, some of its chapters had been published in prominent academic journals in the discipline, like International Journal of Communication, Journal of Language and Politics, and Telos.”

Since its original hard-cover publication, there was a subsequent, paperback publication in July 2020 and a critical, academic review article publication in a top-notched, peer-reviewed academic journal in December 2020. Right now Dr. Kim is working on several active research projects and a second book.

“The surprising success of BTS (also known as the Bangtan Boys) and BlackPink in the US suggests an ever-growing creative agility of the K-pop industry,” Dr. Kim said. “I have a couple of active research projects scheduled to publish. One of the most active projects is that a couple of my research papers on BTS will be published later this year as a part of Routledge’s edited volume on the global successes of South Korean popular culture and a peer-reviewed journal publication. My research on South Korean government’s policy on film industry will be published by SUNY Press next year.

My second book on South Korean women’s socio-political activism will be published by Palgrave McMillan in 2023. It is titled as Political Maternity, Human Rights, and the Gwangju May Uprising: Untold Stories of the Bereaved Mothers’ Fight for Truth and Justice in South Korea.”

When asked if there was any aspect of his book that he incorporates into his lectures, the answer was ‘yes.’

“To spearhead the socio-historic legacy of Cheyney as the Nation’s first HBCU, I incorporate how African American lives have influenced and been constructed by mass communication media in the US. Especially, I have indicated how commercialization of hip-hop has coopted the music genre’s initial nature of socio-political statement on racial injustices in the U.S. In other words, while I do not use K-pop and Korean popular culture in my lectures, I do apply all the research questions and findings from my book in every part of my teaching at Cheyney.”

Dr. Kim also stated that he is developing new courses on hip-hop, to address Hip Hop and African American Lives in the Media and Politics of Hip Hop. He hopes to incorporate these courses into the Communication Arts degree program at Cheyney. He doesn’t use portions of his book in his lectures but would like to use some portion of the book in other courses that have been submitted for approval process, such as International/ Intercultural Communication.

“As far as the Communication Arts Program at Cheyney is concerned, it is set to grow and get stronger,” Dr. Kim said. “I have proposed to offer many courses that students are interested in and find useful in their career developments, such as Sports Journalism, History of Black Cinema, Media Industry and Racism, Social Movements and the Media, Media and African American Legacy in Philadelphia, and Environmental Communication to name a few.

The virtual Founder’s Day celebration was vibrant with speakers and musical performances by renowned artists & a tribute to former Legendary Basketball Coach John Chaney

Even though COVID-19 restrictions prohibited students, staff, alumni, and distinguished guests from gathering in person for the annual Founder’s Day event, Cheyney University still brought everyone together virtually in celebratory fashion to mark the university’s 184^th anniversary. The event honored former members of the Cheyney community and included musical performances by the world-renowned The String Queens and professional singer and platinum-selling songwriter Lauren Evans.

Under the theme, “Audacity to Succeed,” Cheyney recognized its resurgence under the leadership of President Aaron A. Walton through recorded videos of various speakers, including Kevin Guile, President of the Cheyney University National Alumni Association, who delivered a powerful message to the audience.

“In the years past, when our backs were up against the wall and most tried to count us out, the University’s current administration, faculty and staff, students, Council of Trustees, Cheyney Foundation, and the Cheyney Alumni Association had the audacity to create a Resurgence that catapulted Cheyney University on the path of one of the greatest comeback stories in recent memory,” said Guile. “We have the audacity to succeed. We have the audacity to be bold. But we also have the audacity to be First!”

The event commenced by a “silencing the mic” tribute to alumnus Tony Lee, who passed away last month due to complications related to COVID-19. He was the Founder’s Day Master of Ceremonies for the last two years. This year, a few students were selected to fill his role by defining what the event’s theme meant to them and their future. Abson Francois, a double major in Biology and Business Administration said, “I have the audacity to become a nephrologist and have my own practice.”

“In this Cheyney environment, our students, faculty and staff escape the microaggressive behaviors that have become so commonplace in our society,” said Kizzy Morris, Provost and Chief Academic Officer. “We serve the medicine of microaffirmation at Cheyney, where individual talents are developed, nurtured and promoted.”

A tribute was also made to former Men’s Basketball Coach John Chaney who coached at Cheyney for 10 years and led the Wolves to victory in the 1978 NCAA Division II Men’s Basketball National Championship, marking the only team from the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference to win the top title. Chaney passed away last month after a Hall of Fame career. Former players and former colleague, C. Vivian Stringer, who coached Cheyney’s Women’s Basketball team, honored Coach Chaney through video recordings.

According to Stringer, Chaney used to say, “You don’t raise the ceiling without raising the floor.”

“He was always sincere about his players, his passion and the importance of getting an education,” said Stringer. “Cheyney University gave us the opportunity to rise above where we came from and the university will always stick by you. There is a lot of love and respect and once you become part of Cheyney, you are always a member of the Cheyney Family.”

In addition, President Walton presented Cheyney’s Institution Partnership Award to The Wistar Institute. In July 2020, Cheyney University and The Wistar Institute announced a strategic collaboration between the nation’s first HBCU and the nation’s first biomedical research institute. Through this alliance, beginning this semester, Cheyney students are participating in Wistar’s biomedical research and training curriculum.

“Students are gaining hands-on experience through laboratory courses and internships that can progress into Wistar’s credentialed apprenticeship program,” said President Walton. “As a new member of the Philadelphia Research Consortium, Cheyney University and our on-campus life-sciences companies will be able to leverage the research and business communities coalesced around the Consortium.”

President Walton also presented the Outstanding Service Award to the Delaware Valley, Pennsylvania Chapter of The Links, Incorporated. During the fall semester, The Links partnered with Cheyney’s Student Affairs Department to organize a student voter registration drive resulting in over 100 new voters being registered on campus in time for the November 2020 election. Additionally, the organization partnered with the University to spearhead a coat drive and supported the campus food pantry.

To watch the Founder’s Day celebration, click here.