MURFREESBORO — Author R. Dwayne
Betts, whose one “moment of insanity” ultimately changed his life for the good,
will help welcome MTSU’s newest scholars at the annual University Convocation
inside Murphy Center on Sunday, Aug. 25.
The public is
welcome to the free 2 p.m. event in Hale Arena, which helps mark the beginning
of the 2013-14 academic year at MTSU, the university’s 103rd year of educating
Tennessee’s best.
University Convocation
formally welcomes new freshmen into the MTSU learning community. Faculty
members march in their regalia as the MTSU Band of Blue performs, and the
traditions and rituals of the university are explained to the newest members of
the MTSU family.
Betts’ memoir, “A
Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in
Prison,” is MTSU’s 2013 Summer Reading Selection.
In it, Betts, a
poet, essayist and national spokesman for the Campaign for Youth Justice,
chronicles his experience after picking up a pistol for the first time as a
16-year-old honors student and carjacking and robbing a stranger. He spent nine
years in prison and emerged to become a bookstore manager, establish book clubs
for African-American boys and earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of
Maryland.
"I taught
myself how to frame the world in a way in which I could be more than what I was
during the 30 minutes I committed the crime," Betts told CNN in a 2009
interview.
"There is no
end to the ingenuity of a man's mind that won't be denied. You can teach
yourself anything you want. … You can be more than any one mistake you make.”
Betts now writes and
lectures about the impact of mass incarceration on American society. In April
2012, President Obama appointed him to the Coordinating Council on Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and in 2011, Betts was awarded a Radcliffe
Fellowship to Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Studies.
MTSU’s Summer Reading Program, created in
2002, aims to provide a unifying experience for entering freshmen. The students
are expected to read the book before classes start Aug. 24, and all University
1010 classes will discuss it this fall. Faculty also are incorporating the book
into their fall lesson plans.
First-year students
are expected to attend Convocation; their families and members of the MTSU and
surrounding communities are welcome, too.
Immediately after
Convocation, the public also is invited to the annual President’s Picnic in
Walnut Grove, located in the center of campus between the Cope Administration
Building and Peck Hall, to celebrate the new academic year.
Both events are part
of MTSU’s annual “Week of Welcome” celebration. For a complete “Week of
Welcome” schedule, visit http://www.mtsu.edu/nsfp/welcome_nsfp.php
or call 615-898-2454 for more information.
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