Prairie View A&M University’s Texas Juvenile Crime Prevention Center, in collaboration with the President’s Office, hosted the Annual Royce West Forum and Lecture Series on April 4, 2019. The keynote speaker was Harvard Historian Dr. Khalil Gibran Mohammad who discussed Building Youth Capacity: Reversing the Condemnation of Blackness and Brown–ness. Moderated by Endowed Professor of Political Science Dr. Melanye Price, the event also featured panelists Emmet Campos of University of Texas Austin’s Project MALES and Abdul Haleem Muhammad (Robert S. Muhammed) of NTE Planning Consultants and Mosque 45 in Houston. Each speaker referenced the importance of knowing history as the state prepares for an inevitably more diverse future.
“This year’s forum was the center’s official start of an initiative at the university to address the negative trajectories of too many African American and Latino boys in Texas, in terms of outcomes,” said Dr. Susan Frazier-Kouassi, director of the Texas Juvenile Crime Prevention Center. “The speakers charged the audience to examine the policies that contribute to these dynamics while exposing youth to possibilities through mentorship.”
Texas Senator Royce West, who joined the group electronically, also encouraged careful monitoring of outcomes toward effective change.
Pictured above from left to right: Frank Jackson, Assistant Vice Chancellor for State Relations; Camille Gibson, Interim Dean of the College of Juvenile Justice & Psychology and the Executive Director of the Texas Juvenile Crime Prevention Center; Emmet Campos, Director, Project MALES & Texas Education Consortium for Male Students of Color at the University of Texas – Austin; Melayne Price, Endowed Professor of Political Science; Kahlil Gibran Muhammad, Professor of History, Race, and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School & Suzanne Young Murray Professor, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies; Ruth Simmons, President of PVAMU; Abdul Haleem Muhammad, Founder of NTE Planning Consultants, LLC; Susan Frazier-Kouassi, Director of the Texas Juvenile Crime Prevention center; Harold Wright, State Director of Community and University Partnerships, Texas Education Agency