Virginia State University has received a $200,000 donation to establish a scholarship in honor of Millard D. “Pete” Stith Jr., Chesterfield’s deputy county administrator. The gift is from William H. Goodwin Jr. and his wife, Alice. Stith served on the VSU board of visitors from 1994 to 1998 and as rector from 1996 to 1997. He was instrumental in organizing Chesterfield County’s annual Black History Month concerts at VSU.

A renewal of the sense of urgency from the civil-rights movement is needed to close the nation’s educational achievement gap, Virginia Union University graduates were told yesterday. “To be sure, education is the new civil-rights agenda,“ Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones told graduates of his alma mater. Fifty-five years after the U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing school segregation, much work still needs to be done to change the paradigm of educational opportunities, he said.

Six Virginia State University students and two other men have been charged in a fraternity hazing incident that left a VSU student hospitalized with extreme bruising. Matthew E. Brown, 20; Christopher D. Cannaday, 21; Wayne L. Bowser Jr., 21; Isaac A. Montgomery, 26; Jaramis R. Whitaker, 24; and Maurice L. Brown, 30, were charged with one count each of hazing, a misdemeanor.

Virginia Tech’s board of visitors is holding down tuition increases for next year. Tech, which had anticipated a 9 percent rise, has approved a 5 percent increase for tuition and mandatory fees for Virginia undergraduate students. That will bring their cost to $8,605, a $407 increase. Total average annual costs for a Virginia undergraduate student living on campus will rise from $13,674 to $14,429.

Francesca Glascon was in the middle of her sophomore year at Virginia State University when the financial concerns began. Toward the end of 2005, Glascon’s parents were in a tough economic situation after her mother lost her job. Paying the out-of-state attendance cost of slightly more than $12,000 for VSU was a major concern because financial aid wasn’t going to cover it all.

Five-year-old Elsie cried when her older brother went to school because she couldn’t go, too. She went anyway, unenrolled, though she was younger than the minimum starting age by a few months. She credited the head start with her graduation from Dinwiddie Training School, an all-black high school, at age 15 and college at 19. Dr. Elsie Goodwyn Holland was born in 1935 in McKenney in rural Dinwiddie County, the daughter of a school janitor. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Virginia State College (now a university) in 1955 and her master’s there in 1969. She was 37 when she moved to an apartment in Charlottesville to earn her doctorate in elementary education from the University of Virginia, graduating in 1975. Her husband continued to live and work in Richmond.

Virginia State University’s Department of Languages and Literature and VSU theatrical performers will present a powerful play titled “Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train.“ The drama in a prison setting, written by playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, is scheduled to run Nov. 19 in the Little Theatre in the basement of Vawter Hall on campus. Admission is free.

Virginia State University will hold its ninth international forum, “Democracy, Poverty Reduction and Social Justice: Agenda for the Next President of the United States,“ on Oct. 31 from 9 to 10:50 a.m. in Colson Auditorium, Harris Hall on campus. The forum, organized by VSU Department of Economics’ Center for Diplomacy and International Economics, will address some of the most important and urgent issues facing the U.S. and the international community. Concurrent sessions will follow from 11 to 11:50 a.m.

Virginia State University’s 2008 Homecoming activities begin Saturday, Oct. 18 and will continue through Oct. 25 as alumni, students, family and friends commemorate the Trojan experience. Loida N. Lewis, and Carolyn E. Fugett, wife and mother, respectively, of the late VSU alum Reginald F. Lewis, one of the nation’s most successful lawyers and entrepreneurs, will serve as parade marshals during the Homecoming Parade on Oct. 25. Lewis, a 1965 graduate, was once listed by Forbes magazine as one of the country’s wealthiest business leaders. Parade marshals will promenade from downtown Petersburg to the campus with university and community groups, and the Trojan Explosion Marching Band.

Virginia State University in Ettrick is teaming up with several community and civic organizations to host a “Voting Rights in America” symposium on Thursday, Sept. 18, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the L. Douglas Wilder Building on campus. The purpose of the symposium is to raise awareness of voting and its significance in the country during this year’s momentous presidential election.

Wesley C. Hogan, associate professor of history at Virginia State University, was recently awarded three major literary honors for her book "Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC's Dream for a New America." Hogan won the Lillian Smith Book Award and is a finalist in the 11th annual Library of Virginia Literary Awards' "best nonfiction about Virginia or by a Virginia author" category. Her book also received the Peace History Society's Scott Bills Memorial Prize.

At the outset of Col. William Bailey's career as a pilot in the Army's aviation unit in the early 60s, not many African Americans were flying in the military, let alone for commercial airlines. Despite an environment steeped in racism and Jim Crow, Bailey was determined to fly. Bailey's passion was kindled after one of his older brothers purchased a plane. Resolved to blaze a path few blacks had trod, he served a stint as a pilot in the Army and later transitioned his aviation skills into a civil career with Continental Airlines. He retired as a Boeing 747 captain.