I am not satisfied with my work environment.  This is the place where I spend most of my time.

As a psychology professor at Howard University, I find myself working in an environment that is crumbling before my very eyes. Howard University was founded in 1867 and many of the buildings in which I teach and conduct research are historic building with few updates and little maintenance.

As a result, there have been series problems with mold, air and water for example.   However, in the current economic crisis the world is facing and many fighting to stop congressional appropriations to Howard University and other HBCU's, it is hard to get the financial resources to fix the problems.

I would like to do something about this in the form of soliciting donations from philanthropists and corporations to give to Howard University to create a better and safer environment for students, faculty, and staff.

I am a fourth generation Howard University graduate and now a professor here who studies the success of African Americans.  And I know both from personal experience and my own psychological research findings that Howard University remains the leading university in the country for the education of African American students.  Howard University produces the largest number of African American undergraduates who enter graduate school and earn Ph.D.'s in the fields of psychology, engineering and science.  Our founders developed a medical school at our founding because they believed in the importance of science and medical education for African Americans.  And Howard University invented diversity in higher education.  Although we were founded by General Howard the head of the Freedman's Bureau , in part to provide an education to the recently freed slaves, Howard University has since its founding admitted women.  It also very early in its history admitted international students.  It also has one of the most racially and ethnically diverse faculty in the country.

So there is no reason why in 2010 with all the intellectual capital and success of Howard University I should work in a physical environment that is crumbling.  Hopefully I can empower myself to be an effective leader in developing a strategy to motivate and ask others to give millions of dollars to Howard University to completely transform the historic buildings into places that are environmentally sound.  This would be my environmental change dream!  My first one was already fulfilled when I was selected to be the Creative Producer for Planet Harmony, a new movement to increase environmental literacy and justice through the creative use of multimedia in a web based environment and within the communities in which African Americans are disproportionately impacted by environmental injustice.