Criminal Justice Student Association (CJA) Toy Drive

The student Criminal Justice Association (CJA) is in the process of collecting new unwrapped toys for the children of women prisoners at the Correctional Treatment Facility, SE, DC. Books and learning toys preferred, but all gifts are appreciated for children between the ages of 3 – 12 years. Our gifts will be donated to the children of women being released from prison between December 22, 2009 and January 31, 2010. Boxes will be located in USGA Suite, Building 38, A-22 and in my office, Building 41,400-4.

I appeal to you to support the CJA by donating a new unwrapped gift, and by encouraging your students to do the same. Our goal is to collect at least 80 gifts that will be donated to approximately 40 women that are scheduled for release during the timeframe noted above.

I will escort five CJA students to the Correctional Treatment Facility on December 21st to present the toys and books to the women during a formal holiday program.

Please, help us to make this holiday season a little brighter for a few incarcerated women and their children.

The flyer for the Toy Drive is attached.

Margaret A. Moore

RENTAL OF REGALIA – WINTER COMMENCEMENT AND FOUNDERS’ DAY CONVOCATIONS 2010

The University of the District of Columbia will hold its first Winter Commencement Convocation (Flagship and Community College) on Friday, January 29, 2010, at 2:00 p.m. in the University Auditorium, Connecticut Avenue and Wyndom Place, NW, Washington, D.C. Orders for academic regalia will be taken from Monday, November 23rd through Friday, December 18th in the University Bookstore, Building 38, Level "A". Rental orders must be placed before the holidays, but regalia can be kept for both the Winter Commencement as well as Founders’ Day (February 17th). The following rental rates for standard quality regalia will apply through December 18th:

Doctorate Degree: Master's Degree:
Full Regalia w/tam $57.50
Full Regalia w/cap $47.50 Full Regalia $43.50
Cap/tam, Gown, Tassel $30.00 Cap, Gown, Tassel $25.00
Gown Only $18.00 Gown Only $17.00
Hood Only $20.00 Hood Only $17.50
Tam Only $12.00 Cap Only $ 5.00
Cap Only $ 5.00 Tassel Only $ 4.00
Tassel Only $ 5.00

Bachelor's and Associate's Degrees
Full Regalia $41.25
Cap, Gown, Tassel $23.25
Gown Only $16.00
Hood Only $16.25
Cap Only $ 5.00
Tassel Only $ 4.00

New Program: BA in Security Studies

The Criminal Justice program at the University of the District of Columbia is pleased to announce that on July 16th the University Board of Trustees approved the establishment of an online bachelor's degree program in Security Studies as part of the Criminal Justice Program. The new program will begin Fall 2009.

Tribute to Tom Blagburn, Community Outreach Coordinator, Institute for Public Safety & Justice

Godfather of community policing dies

By: Harry Jaffe
Examiner Columnist | 4/28/09 6:22 PM

Tom Blagburn never gave up on the people of Washington, D.C.

I’m not talking about the swells who reside east of Rock Creek Park in Upper Caucasia; and I’m not referring to the black and white middle-class folks who live along 16th Street in Shepherd’s Park or Crestwood; or even the yuppies and buppies who are jamming themselves into all the swank new downtown condos.

Tom was for the Washingtonian parents who couldn’t read, whose kids went to school hungry, whose lives were stamped “loser” a generation or two ago. Tom would call me up and rage at how I was a lousy journalist because I wasn’t writing enough about the “real problems” of the city.

Tom won’t be calling anymore. He died yesterday morning. In that sad moment, the nation’s capital lost someone who was totally selfless and completely dedicated to kids and families in dire straits.

Lowell Duckett — retired cop, Pentecostal minister and Tom’s best buddy — gave me the news and said: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall see God.”

Tom Blagburn would rather have all of Washington see the people he believed were lost and forgotten; he would rather have saved one teenager from jail.

I figure Tom was in his early 60s. He came to D.C. from California. He told me he had some Cherokee blood. He started working for the D.C. government in the 1960s when Walter Washington was elected the city’s first mayor. He joined the police department in 1976, worked his way up to its top echelons and advised several chiefs, from Bertell Jefferson to Maurice Turner to Ike Fulwood.

“He brought a sense of dignity and intellect to the department,” says Duckett.

Before community policing became a buzz phrase, Tom Blagburn was building bridges between cops and schools and government agencies and churches. He saw decades ago that the fabric of Washington’s urban community was in tatters, and he sought to knit it back together.

When Tom retired in 1997, he dedicated himself to helping young kids. He started a nonprofit T-shirt company that employed dozens. He never quit believing that if they were given a chance, kids would succeed, stay off the streets, learn and live good lives.

In the last few years, Tom worked for the University of the District Columbia’s Institute for Public Safety and Justice. He gathered up his buddies, like former Chief Ike Fulwood and Peaceoholics founder Ronald Moten, and brought them to high schools to talk to kids on the edge.

Until about a month ago, I would see Tom in the Safeway on Connecticut Avenue. He lived nearby with his wife. They had put two sons through D.C. schools. Tom would vent and tell me what to write. We would make plans to visit Carver Terrace. All of a sudden, he started to lose weight. Doctors diagnosed cancer. And then he was gone.

In the last months, Tom would rage more and more about the city’s lost youth. It was as if his flame burned brighter, just before it went out.

SCHOLARSHIP OPPORTUNITY

Need financial aid? Don't miss out on this opportunity!

THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BLACK NARCOTIC AGENTS (NABNA), a non-partisan not for profit organization of federal, state ad local law enforcement careerist is offering scholarship awards of up to $5,000. The scholarships are merit based for students pursing professional fields of study in Criminal Justice. Applicants must be currently enrolled and will enroll in school year 2009-2010. The award may be used at any institution to defray the cost of tuition, fees, supplies or room and board.

The selection will be based on the following criteria:

1) Criminal Justice major
2) 2.5 minimum G.P.A.
3) School and community involvement
4) Letter of recommendation from the Criminal Justice Department
5) Full time class standing
6) Personal/telephone interview

The application and all other information must be submitted no later than May 1, 2009.

A letter from the Chairperson of the NABNA Scholarship Awards Committee and the scholarship application are available on the information table outside of Room 407-3 (B-41) or from my office, 400-3 (B-41).

Feel free to call me if you have any questions.

Prof. Moore

Keeping Tabs on Young Offenders

The March 11 article "D.C. to Share Data About Top Youth Offenders" touched on an important issue in the city's continuing efforts to improve public safety.

I have advocated the sharing of information on juvenile arrest histories with select youth organizations for a long time, specifically with the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation's Roving Leader Program. With its long history of success, this organization should have been noted in the article. The sharing of youth offender information has occurred in the past but only on a very informal basis.

But limiting such sharing to 60 of the most serious offenders, as the city's new program would do, amounts to a drop in the bucket. The District has that many current and former juvenile offenders in just one underserved Northeast neighborhood.

The deeper and more pressing issue isn't about sharing offender histories or performing background checks but concerns ensuring government accountability for providing comprehensive, performance-measurable treatment plans to meet the complex rehabilitation needs of each young offender. So much more is needed to truly address this problem.

We love to tinker around the edges. But too often the heavy work seems to go undone.

TOM BLAGBURN

Washington

The writer is a former director of community policing and youth gang intervention for the D.C. police and is presently the Outreach Coordinator for the Institute for Public Safety & Justice @ UDC

Reprinted from the Washington Post, Tuesday, March 17, 2009; A14

Open Letter to our Alumni

Dear Alumni
For the past 35 years the University of the District of Columbia has stood in the forefront as an example of the democratization of education. Like the motto engraved on the Statue of Liberty ... give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free... the University of the District of Columbia has offered a promise to all residents of this city - come to us as you are, and we will get you to where you should be.

It has long been understood by the faculty and the students at this institution that open admissions did not mean open graduation. UDC students matriculated by virtue of hard work, determination and nurtured intellect. In the criminal justice program our graduates can be found in all areas of government and the private sector. We have always been so very proud of you.

Recent decisions by the Board of Trustees to impose a 100% tuition increase over a two year period and to eliminate open admissions for the 4 year baccalaureate programs appear to have been taken in the belief that the quality of graduates are measured when they enter the University as opposed to when they exit. The decision to track students not meeting a new set of "standards" into an institution which does not award 4-year baccaluareate degrees should not be viewed as a return to the days pre-Brown v. Board of Education with the fiction of seprate but equal because the separate institution in this instance will not award 4-year degrees.

It is possible that some of you may have felt offended and insulted by what appeared to be a denigration of your hard work and the value of your degree. Some of you may be concerned that your employers will view you less favorably when it comes to promotion after reading negative comments made by high university officials. If so, the faculty of the criminal justice program want to apologize on behalf of the University. We also assure you that we will not take it personally in the event you feel compelled to object in writing to what you may have perceived to be an insult.

Sincerely,

Faculty of the Criminal Justice Program
University of the District of Columbia