Dr. Rashad Richey (photo provided by Dr. Richey)
ATLANTA – On Thursday, Sept. Sept 14, radio and television host Rashad Richey, Ph.D., delivered a powerful keynote speech at the fall 2023 convocation at Clark Atlanta University. Richey, a 2018 CAU doctoral graduate from the School of Education, infused physics theories and lessons in his address.
“Everything has a response, regardless of time and distance,” said Richey, who is a multidisciplinary scholar and a physics professor. “Everything is connected.”
And Richey highlighted the theory of the so-called “observer effect.” This is the notion paying close attention to the powers that be — law enforcement, elected leaders or business executives — may have the effect of changing
adverse behavior toward marginalized communities.
CAU president, George T. French, Jr., Ph.D., and Rashad Richey
Richey also discussed how journalists in the newsroom he oversees as president of rolling out magazine are encouraged to tell stories through their experience and culture. He implored students to own their narrative by embracing their experiences, exposures and environment. He encouraged to tell their complex stories with “integrity and insight,” while debunking misleading cultural narratives.
Perhaps the part of his speech in which students paid the most attention was when Richey cautioned them against allowing others to judge them. “Don’t let anyone measure you,” he said. “Don’t let anyone limit you. When you do, you leave the place of potentiality and fall into the place of a fixed particle,” another physics reference that resonated with the crowd.
To close out the speech, Richey brought the crowd back to his original premise of changing one’s perspective to transform the world, and he directly linked that idea to one of CAU’s mottos, “I’ll find a way or make one.”
If audience applause and head nods by CAU president George T. French Jr. were any indication, the speech was well received.
–mario boone, writer and fashionista
