March 23, 2018

Ploghoft Lecture to feature the president of The Harbor Institute

Rasheed Ali Cromwell

Northwest Missouri State University will host Rasheed Ali Cromwell, founder and president of The Harbor Institute, for the University’s spring Ploghoft Diversity Lecture.

Cromwell’s lecture, which is free and open to the public, begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 3, in the Charles Johnson Theater at the Olive DeLuce Fine Arts Building. An attorney and consultant, Cromwell’s lecture, titled “I Never Saw It Like That,” will uses his legal and academic experiences to frame cultural context and its relevancy in today’s classroom. He leads an interactive discourse about the significance of increasing understanding, awareness and sensitivity as it relates to cultural competency and education.

Additionally, Cromwell will lead an afternoon workshop for Northwest education majors where he will emphasize cultural competency as students travel into professional education.

“Mr. Cromwell comes from a family of lifelong public school educators and has a passion to work with those who are looking to enter the field of education,” said Dr. David Kiene, the chair of the Ploghoft Committee and an assistant professor of education. “As a fourth generation Historically Black College and University graduate, he brings a personal appreciation, sensitivity and insight into what a supportive environment means as it relates to student success.”

Cromwell graduated from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and a juris doctorate from Texas Southern University. He later served as a federal law clerk in U.S. Federal District Court in the Southern District of Texas and worked as an attorney at Finnegan & Henderson, a prominent intellectual property law firm in Washington, D.C.

Through the Harbor Institute, which he founded in 2008 and led as president during the last nine years, Cromwell has presented dynamic keynote speeches, interactive and engaging training sessions, and consulted for thousands of students and administrators at more than 250 colleges and universities in 38 states.

His work has been highlighted in Essence and Ebony magazines, and he has received awards from both the National Association of Student Professional Administrators and the Association of Fraternal and Sorority Advisors (AFA) for his work in the areas of curriculum development as it relates to leadership development and students of color.

The Ploghoft Diversity Lecture series features speakers and activities that broaden the educational perspectives of Northwest teacher candidates and inform all students about the issues facing the education of students from diverse environments.

It is funded through the generosity of Dr. Milton Ploghoft of Athens, Ohio, and his late wife, Zella. Dr. Ploghoft, a 1949 Northwest alumnus, is professor emeritus at Ohio University. Zella, who passed away in 2010, completed her elementary and secondary education at Horace Mann Laboratory School at Northwest.

Dr. Ploghoft authored a number of textbooks in the social studies and lived abroad for many years, founding the College of Education in Kano, Nigeria, lecturing at Saigon University and leading the university's international programs in such disparate places as Chile, Cameroun, Botswana, the Yucatan, Swaziland and in what was then South Vietnam. In 1992, he became the founding editor of the African Education Research Network.