Monday, Jan. 16 at 1:30 p.m.—RUTLAND—College of St. Joseph will host a presentation by Dr. Paul Miller of Green Tech High Charter School in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Jan. 16. He will discuss a variety of topics including identity, the Curse of Willie Lynch, learned helplessness, and a fixed mindset versus a championship mindset, all through the lens of his personal story and his book, “We Need to Do Better.”
Dr. Miller has more than 15 years experience in the urban public education system. He has served as CEO and principal of Green Tech, a nonprofit devoted to providing young males the tools to successfully obtain a higher education in Albany, N.Y., since 2012.
According to the Schott Foundation, 37 percent of black males graduate high school within New York state. Green Tech is composed 95 percent of black males. GTH had a 91 percent graduation rate in 2015, as well as 100 percent rate of college acceptance every year under Dr. Miller’s leadership.
Dr. Miller is also an education consultant for Urbane Education Alterations, a consulting firm he founded alongside Dr. Leonard Brock, that is dedicated to the development and reform of education and businesses.
He joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an international civil rights organization, as a council member of the Next Generation Leadership Council in 2015. He has received numerous awards, including being recognized as one of the top 40 under 40 African American Leaders in Rochester in 2011. He is a graduate of St. John Fisher College and SUNY Brockport.
“Over the last several years, the United States has experienced unrest, violence, and political turmoil on a scale that has not been seen since the Civil Rights Movements of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Many have exercised their right to freedom of speech and civil disobedience which was cause many Americans to ponder, ‘Where do we go from here?’ A possible solution is to understand, as did Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that chained minds and hearts stunt the growth of all people,” said Paula McGhee, director of Diversity and Inclusion at CSJ. “Our theme for this year’s program, “Freedom of Mind,” seeks to challenge the ideologies that we embrace in order to free our minds to examine what it means to be a productive world citizen in the 21st century.”
The event is free and open to the public. The discussion will begin at 1:30 p.m. in Tuttle Theater, located on the CSJ campus at 71 Clement Road in Rutland.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Martin Luther King, Jr. addresses a crowd from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial where he delivered his famous, “I Have a Dream,” speech during the Aug. 28, 1963, march on Washington, D.C.
