Shades of Promise

Shades of Promise: Today’s Young Leaders in Action brings together some of the top student leaders from Colorado State Univeristy and South Carolina State University - a historically black university - to dialogue about the importance of multiculturalism and social justice.

"Shades of Promise will give the students a chance to talk about some very tough, relevant issues. For all the parties involved, the project is going to provide an honest, safe environment to learn from each other's different experiences and history," said Jennifer Johnson, the assistant director of the Student Leadership, Involvement and Community Engagement office at Colorado State University, which has organized the project along with SCSU officials.

In a time when race is a central topic on the national stage—from the Jena Six to the Democratic presidential primary - Shades of Promise will provide a unique opportunity for the 40 students involved to dialogue about issues that will affect them for their entire lives.

This weekend is the first of three experiences with which the Shades of Promise participants will be involved; in October, the CSU participants will travel to Orangeburg, South Carolina to visit SCSU. Finally, both student teams hope to travel to Africa in early 2009 for a multi-week service immersion experience, which is contingent upon the organization raising enough money to finance the trip. Beginning with an opening banquet on Thursday night, the 20 students from each institution will get to know each other, forming bonds which will grow throughout the weekend.

The experience will be documented by professional videographers to create a documentary which organizers hope will act as a blueprint for other institutions to follow for creating similar projects like Shades of Promise. "The project will provide some wonderful learning for those involved. It is our hope through the video and the actions these students will undertake after this project that the impact will be much greater then just the 40 students involved. We hope this is just the beginning of a long lasting model for social justice dialogue nationwide," Johnson said.