President Davis Lay Scholarship Luncheon Speaker

President Davis continues to make an impactful impression in efforts to create a reimagined Livingstone College. On Thursday, June 6, under the leadership of presiding prelate Darryl B. Starnes, the Western North Carolina Conference of the Piedmont Episcopal District hosted its annual Albert Stout Sr. Memorial Scholarship Luncheon at the Sheraton Four Seasons-Koury Convention Center in Greensboro with Dorothy Gill-Smith, presiding. The event bears the name of a lay member from New Hope A.M.E. Zion Church in the Salisbury District.

As hundreds gathered for an occasion that provides financial assistance to Livingstone College and Hood Theological Seminary students, the program was filled with various participants to include William Manning, Barbara Mallett, Gloria Joyner Johnson, Sarah Stout, Michael Stout, Rev. Thomas Lee, Mary Ponds, and Trubbie Leeper.

The 13th President of Livingstone College opened his address quoting Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” while referencing the founding fathers of Livingstone, who were A.M.E. Zion leaders with an audacious idea to formally educate descendants of enslaved Africans in the United States of America. “145 years later, Livingstone College is thriving,” Davis stated to congregants, “send your students to Livingstone.”

The President shared a few highlights of the college, including full accreditation by SACSCOC, a graduate MBA program, building renovations, strong academic classes, and the power of attending an HBCU where students are celebrated.

As the first clergy since founder Joseph Charles Price to serve as president, Davis delivered a message undergirded with biblical scholarship from Mark 5 entitled, “Confronting Critical Conditions.” Davis paralleled the conditions plaguing the menaced young man in the text to the plethora of challenges college students experience while trying to pursue advanced degrees and earn a place in the mosaic world. Davis said, “Jesus talks to the conditions controlling the man . . . Confront the condition controlling our students like underfunded public schools, mental and social traumatization, poverty, education biases, school to prison pipeline, and more . . . When Jesus confronts his condition, the young man goes from being a mess to a missionary and tells anyone who will listen.”

Davis reminds the audience, “Education is the tool of our emancipation. We educate students who endure, emerge, and escape. We have a mission too critical to abandon.”
Following the president, four Livingstone College students, Dillion Dosithee, Joseph Bryant, Joshua Sutherland, and Zion Williams, extended expressions of gratitude to the audience as award recipients of the Albert Stout Scholarship.

The program concluded with Bishop Starnes thanking all program participants and contributors to the cause while reiterating President Davis's message. Pastor Thomas E. Grinter of New Hope and professor at Hood Theological Seminary said, “I identified with the President’s words of believing in the principles of multiplication. There is almost always a challenge with students and financial and/or student accounts, and this is where Albert Stout and many other scholarships from constituents have value.”

Davis expressed,” Many students will not know Albert Stout or know those who contribute in his name. We must be committed to the mission. We are here to build a bridge.”