Vanderbilt University will examine the legacy of African American fraternities and sororities, which celebrate their 100th birthday this year, during a week of activities Feb. 6-10.

Display tables highlighting fraternities and sororities, panel discussions, a screening of the Spike Lee film School Daze and a poetry slam will be featured.

The first African American Greek organization in the United States, Alpha Phi Alpha, was founded at Cornell University in December of 1906. An early member was W.E.B. Du Bois, who helped form the NAACP in 1909.

The Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center at Vanderbilt will host activities through the week marking the anniversary. Events include:  more >>

The local graduate chapter of the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority is planning to celebrate the life of a sorority sister who became a literary legend and at one point fibbed about her age and packed a pistol in her purse.

The Eta Zeta chapter's fourth annual Zora Neale Hurston Arts Festival next weekend pays tribute to the Queen of the Harlem Renaissance for her work as an anthropologist, playwright, folklorist, journalist, activist and fiction writer.

The Harlem Renaissance was a period in New York in the early 1900s when African-American literature, art, music, dance and social commentary began to flourish; other famous writers from the time include Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, James Weldon Johnson and Claude McKay.   more >>

For Kingsley Junior High School math teacher Ranae Ernat, one community group's donation really adds up.

Members of the Bloomington-Normal alumni chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi will present 30 Texas Instrument calculators on Monday to Ernat. She has been concerned some students lacking calculators faced an unfair disadvantage in learning the math concepts.

"I was so surprised. I was so elated," Ernat said of hearing the news that the group planned the donation to her classroom.  more >>

"I hope to learn how to save, make money, that stuff," the Suffern boy said. "I have savings that I want to invest. I want to learn how to invest."

Earl and two friends — brothers Kyle Blair, 11, and Kenny Blair, 12 — will attend a free financial seminar Saturday designed to teach 12- to 16-year-olds about basic financial literacy.

Sponsored by the Xi Lambda Lambda chapter of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, the seminar is the first of four or five planned for this year to teach county residents — especially minorities — the fundamentals of personal finance. 

"I'm an accountant ... a tax accountant, and I'm amazed that a lot of people over the last few years ... had members in their family die and they didn't know what to do," Dennis McGloster, fraternity chapter president, said yesterday.  more >>