Qwameek Bethea \u201921 began to suspect it wasn\u2019t a normal day at the office when Furman President Elizabeth Davis, Vice President for Student Life Connie Carson and Chief Diversity Officer Michael Jennings just happened to mosey in at the same time last Friday afternoon. Just how wonderfully abnormal it would turn out to be, however, wasn\u2019t apparent until the room\u2019s attention turned his way and President Davis began to speak.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey came through the front doors and came around the back of the Trone Center and came in the side, and I thought they were just coming back in from a luncheon,\u201d Bethea, the employment engagement fellow for the Malone Center for Career Engagement<\/a>, said. \u201cThen she started to read the recommendation someone had written for me.\u201d<\/p>\n They were there to surprise Bethea with the 2020-21 Rosa Bodkin Award<\/a>, which is presented annually to a nominated student who demonstrates a commitment to advancing Furman\u2019s culture of diversity, inclusion and multiculturalism. First handed out in 2004, the Rosa Bodkin Award was elevated to a presidentially recognized award in 2018 and is normally given at convocation.<\/p>\n Convocation was cancelled this year because of the pandemic.<\/p>\n Bethea is president of the Furman NAACP chapter and has been a campus leader in encouraging students to vote<\/a> and advocating for racial justice. In June, he wrote a guest column in the Greenville News headlined \u201cThe harsh reality of racism for a young Black man.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n The award comes with a check for $2,700, which Bethea said he would put toward bills and law school.<\/p>\n \u201cI appreciated the way it was (presented) just so much more, being with that small group of people, having my co-workers with me showing their support,\u201d Bethea, a native of Hamer, South Carolina, said. \u201cIt really makes it so much more meaningful to me. It was very emotional.\u201d<\/p>\n Bethea is a philosophy and politics and international affairs double major with a minor in African diaspora. He\u2019s also a member of the Furman Pre-Law Society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Qwameek Bethea \u201921 began to suspect it wasn\u2019t a normal day at the office when Furman President Elizabeth Davis, Vice President for Student Life Connie Carson and Chief Diversity Officer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":9043,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,70,87,36,32,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-diversity-equity-and-inclusion","category-malone-center-for-career-engagement","category-philosophy","category-politics-and-international-affairs","category-pre-law"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}