Giving

by Robert Lewis '14

NCCU’s star volunteer thinks her work with the university is paying off, but she is asking for help to enhance the Eagle experience for students.

Levone Winston, ’88, can always be counted on to respond to calls from NCCU as she has done for more than 30 years, saying “yes” to requests for volunteer assistance. She thinks more alumni should respond in kind.

“Not everyone can afford to give financially, but everyone can give an hour of their time here or there,” she said.

Solicitations through mailers and email blasts typically focus on cash donations, but that’s not where institutional giving has to start and stop, Winston said. Hands-on support is equally valuable.

While plenty has changed since her time as an undergraduate earning a criminal justice degree, she remains impressed with the educational experience NCCU offers. She is also excited to see ongoing campus construction, especially the new Student Center.

“I’m amazed, I’m impressed and I’m excited,” she said. “That’s why I want to encourage everyone to give what they can, however they can.”

Winston was an NCCU Forty Under Forty awardee in 2020 and was elected Ms. Alumni in 2012, representing the Durham chapter. She is employed by Durham Public Schools after several years with the Durham Sheriff’s Department.

Winston sees networking as the key to building a larger volunteer base. For her, “Truth and Service” means telling the NCCU story wherever she may be.

“I am always talking about Central,” Winston said. “It’s because of NCCU that I am who I am and where I am. Hopefully, telling my story gives someone else the motivation to come to NCCU or become active in the alumni organization.”

Looking back, she remembers how her passion for NCCU took root early in life when she lived in Rocky Mount. Both her brother and sister graduated from NCCU and often talked about their experiences with Winston, the youngest of the three. Others she knew and respected as a youth were NCCU graduates, including Donald Smith and his wife, who were family friends and always encouraged her to pursue higher education.

Winston attended NCCU football and basketball games as a middle school student, as well as games at N.C. Agricultural & Technical State University in Greensboro. Such exposure can make a big impression on young Black students as they mature, she said.  And it’s something she is trying to pass down.

“I work with summer camps and after-school programs trying to make sure that young African Americans attend HBCU campuses. Exposure to higher education is key,” she said.

A scholarship honoring Amal Abu-Shakra, Ph.D., a longtime member of the biological and biomedical sciences faculty at NCCU, is being established through an estate gift of her longtime friend and mentor David DeMarini, Ph.D., of Chapel Hill. Students and fellow faculty members knew Abu-Shakra as a brilliant toxicologist and biochemist, said DeMarini, who hired her to work at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency office in Durham as a postdoctoral researcher.

“She was a fabulous teacher and mentor to students,” DeMarini said. “I wanted to do something to ensure that her immense talent and influence were not forgotten.”

Professor of Biological and Biomedical Sciences Veronica Nwosu, Ph.D., said she and Abu-Shakra began their tenure-track teaching careers at the same time in 1994, calling her a “global woman of substance.”

“Amal excelled in all three areas of teaching, research, and service and rose through the ranks to become a tenured full professor and a department chair,” Nwosu said. “She was an excellent teacher and received both the NCCU Excellence in Teaching and the UNC Board of Governors’ Award for Excellence in Teaching."

Abu-Shakra, a native of Beirut, Lebanon, earned her Ph.D. from the University of Surrey in England, as well as a bachelor’s degree from the American University of Beirut and a master’s from the University of London, before coming to North Carolina to work for the EPA.

She died of ovarian cancer in 2017, nearly three decades after her first cancer diagnosis during her postdoctoral years.

By Robert Lewis '14

The generic HGTV meme goes something like this: A couple goes out looking for their first home with a real estate budget of $500,000 or more.

This unrealistic reality TV premise is well known to NCCU alumna Ericka Black ’07, ’09, a hard-working real estate entrepreneur who made her first investments before finishing her graduate degree.

Black stayed on track with her academics, even while working a full-time job.

“I took the max number of classes every year and had multiple jobs,” she said.

She even called herself the “Kool-Aid packet lady” in reference to her habit of clipping proof-of-purchase emblems from the beverage packets to earn prizes and save money.

Black has always had an entrepreneurial spirit. She earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology and her master’s degree in public administration.

As a freshman, she started saving money and researching the real estate market, even as her friends were focused on other activities.

“I tried to get classmates to look into investing, but nobody was that financially minded,” she said.

By the time she started graduate school, she and her husband had enough savings to make down payments on two houses.

She said she would urge other students to follow her lead, as real estate is a time-tested way to build wealth.

“People just need to do their research and not overextend themselves,” she said.  “I was able to purchase two houses with my husband, and both mortgages together totaled around $600.” 

After graduating in 2007, Black worked for N.C. Gov. Bev Purdue and Sen. Doug Berger as a liaison between the state and federal governments while earning her MPA degree.

Today, she is considered one of Washington, D.C.,’s top real estate agents and serves as a member of the D.C. Real Estate Commission, which regulates professional real estate licenses and serves as a consumer watchdog for the industry.

Recently, Black launched a fundraising drive to establish an endowment for NCCU, with the goal of reaching $25,000 by October 2021, when she will be honored as a member of the university’s Forty Under Forty award winners.

The Forty Under Forty honor is provided through the Office of Alumni Relations to graduates with outstanding abilities who “forge partnerships, blaze trails and serve their communities worldwide.”

Intel Corporation

Intel Corp. is donating $5 million over the next five years to the NCCU School of Law to create a new tech law and policy center. The semiconductor technology firm will also support the program through the appointment of executive vice president and general counsel Steven R. Rodgers to the law school’s board of visitors, and executives Allon Stabinsky, senior vice president and chief deputy general counsel, and Rhonda Foxx, leader of social equity policies and engagements, to the center’s advisory board.

State Employees Credit Union

The university’s Career and Professional Development Center got a $100,000 boost from the State Employee’s Credit Union (SECU) Foundation through the funding of 20 paid internships. This was the second year the SECU Public Fellow Internship Program has offered NCCU undergraduate students from various majors 10-week internships in rural counties.

ViiV Healthcare Co.

ViiV Healthcare Co. will provide training and mentoring for NCCU researchers and students to use implementation science in the effort to reduce health disparities and improve HIV care for patients in underserved communities. The company’s pharmaceutical scientists will work with NCCU’s Center for Health Disparities Research, part of the Research Center in Minority Institutes funded by the National Institutes of Health, in deploying the program.

Fifth Third Bank

The bank gave $20,000 to the NCCU School of Business to assist with financial literacy education being provided through the Society of Financial Education and Professional Development. The donation also will provide scholarships for undergraduate business students studying personal finance and MBA students concentrating on wealth management, two new concentrations for the School of Business.