{"id":87210,"date":"2020-04-30T11:31:57","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T15:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=87210"},"modified":"2020-04-30T11:31:58","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T15:31:58","slug":"graduating-african-african-american-students-to-be-recognized-virtually-with-kente-stoles-certificates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2020\/04\/30\/graduating-african-african-american-students-to-be-recognized-virtually-with-kente-stoles-certificates\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduating African, African American students to be recognized virtually with Kente Stoles, certificates"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_87218\" style=\"width: 470px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2020\/04\/30\/graduating-african-african-american-students-to-be-recognized-virtually-with-kente-stoles-certificates\/kente-stole_wdg1097\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-87218\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-87218\" class=\"size-large wp-image-87218\" src=\"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/files\/2020\/04\/kente-stole_WDG1097-508x339.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"460\" height=\"307\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-87218\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">After the annual Kente Stole ceremony was canceled, the Bolinga Black Cultural Resources Center found an alternative means to honor graduating students. (File photo from 2017.)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: inherit;font-weight: inherit\">A special graduation-related ceremony in which graduating African and African American Wright State University students are recognized with a Kente Stole is going virtual this year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: inherit;font-weight: inherit\">\u201cThis ceremony has deep cultural significance and is a joyous celebration of the students&#8217; successful completion of their undergraduate degrees,\u201d said Tonya Mathis, interim associate director of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wright.edu\/diversity-and-inclusion\/culture-and-identity-centers\/bolinga-black-cultural-resources-center\/about\">Bolinga Black Cultural Resources Center<\/a>, which holds the traditional ceremony.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: inherit;font-weight: inherit\">Native to the African nation of Ghana, the Kente Stole was developed in the 17th century by the Ashanti people but has its roots in a long tradition of African weaving, dating back to about 3000 B.C. Often reserved for royalty, the stole is a visual representation of history, philosophy, ethics, oral literature, religious beliefs, social values and political thought.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: inherit;font-weight: inherit\">The Kente Stole ceremony had been scheduled for April 20 but was delayed after Wright State canceled campus events to help prevent the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: inherit;font-weight: inherit\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-style: inherit;font-weight: inherit\">The students will instead be presented with an electronic version of the stole plus a certificate via email, thanks to help with the design from Brandy Foster, executive director of The ONEIL Center at Wright State University.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: inherit;font-weight: inherit\">Nearly 230 students will receive the individual congratulatory emails, which began going out April 27 and will conclude May 1.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After the annual Kente Stole ceremony was canceled, the Bolinga Black Cultural Resources Center found an alternative means to honor graduating students.  <a href=\"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2020\/04\/30\/graduating-african-african-american-students-to-be-recognized-virtually-with-kente-stoles-certificates\/\" class=\"morelink\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":87218,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[733,2107,4839,725,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-commencement","category-coronavirus","category-home-news-sidebar","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87210"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87230,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87210\/revisions\/87230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}