THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 26, 1994 TAG: 9409260123
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KIA MORGAN ALLEN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Some college students are no strangers to Mickey Mouse classes, but when the animated rodent actually made an appearance Sunday at Norfolk State University's 20th Annual Fall Convocation, he came bearing gifts.
Mickey and Walt Disney World Co.'s director of casting, Duncan Dickson presented NSU officials with a $50,000 endowment for the school's planned hotel/restaurant management program, and $5,000 for an annual scholarship, to boot.
NSU President Harrison B. Wilson, in presenting a plaque to Dickson for the contribution, jokingly said, ``and remember, we will be coming back for additional assistance,'' and asked Dickson to put the plaque in a safe place.
The endowment capped a profitable week for the university.
On Tuesday, the Norfolk City Council set aside 25 acres in South Brambleton for NSU to build a planned urban institute, a business school, and a hotel.
On Monday, NSU announced it had been awarded a $10 million federal grant from the Department of Energy to expand its materials-science lab. Last month, the university was awarded $500,000 for the second consecutive year to build homes for low-income families near the campus.
In accepting the Disney endowment Sunday, Hubert Alexander, director of the hotel/management program, said it was a well-kept secret.
``I didn't know what was going on,'' said Alexander. ``I kept hearing something about the Mickey Mouse project.''
Freshmen and new students, target guests of the event, cheered as Disney announced the $5,000 scholarship, which will be awarded annually to a student who demonstrates academic excellence.
The announcement came after a rousing address by keynote speaker Kay Cole James, Portsmouth native and secretary of Virginia's Health and Human Resources department.
James began her address by asking any NSU student to send her daughter home if they see her on campus. Her daughter, Elizabeth, a student at Hampton University, spends a lot of time at NSU, Cole said.
On a day that had threatened rain, James spoke to more than 500 students on the Campus Green.
James' speech and the Disney announcement spoke to the day's theme ``A New Attitude for a New Challenge.''
She recalled for the students how she once heard a commotion from the window of her Richmond office, and later discovered that a homeless man had frozen death in the January cold.
``It occurred to me that with being responsible for 24 agencies, 19 employees and a $4 million budget, that I could do something,'' she said.
She urged students not to be victims, but survivors.
``Leave outside the door the attitude that I am a victim!''
James grew up in a Portsmouth home headed by her mother, who was on welfare, and a father who was an alcoholic. She survived, she said, because of the networks around her like church, neighbors, friends and other support groups.
She challenged the students to rebuild the ``village'' and those networks. ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photo by GARY C. KNAPP
Norfolk State University President Harrison B. Wilson and Kay Cole
James, secretary of Virginia's Health and Human Resources
department, attend a ceremony Sunday at which the Walt Disney Co.
the school with an endowment and scholarship fund.
KEYWORDS: DISNEY NORFOLK STATE UNIVERSITY ENDOWMENT by CNB