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CHAMPAIGN – Here's how the movie went: Denzel Washington plays a professor who forms a debate team at his Texas college in 1935. It's the Jim Crow era, and the team of black students is the first to debate teams from white colleges. They go on to challenge Harvard University for the national championship.

Here's how the story goes in Champaign: Vernessa Gipson of the Regional Office of Education is inspired by the movie, "The Great Debaters." She forms a debate team of Champaign high school students, gets them into the Chicago Debate League as a guest team, and they win the conference championship in the junior varsity division.

Their story is as good as any movie.

Take Keyonte Cobb. The junior at Central High admits he was getting into a lot of trouble at school. He was involved with a gang and he got into fights. He spent some time in jail.

Gipson, who is the director of school, family and community partnerships for the Regional Office of Education, met Keyonte when he wanted to join the hip hop dance club that is part of the Regional Office's Teen Reach program.

"I was listening to him talk, and how much he talked," Gipson said. She suggested he join the debate team instead.

Keyonte says doing so has changed his life.

"It made me a new person," he said. "It's made a big change in my life."

Now, he's looking at colleges such as Howard University and Morehouse College. He hopes to study performing arts and pre-law. At a recent college fair, his first question to the college representatives was if their schools had a debate team, Gipson said.

When she was forming the debate team, Gipson asked teachers for recommendations. None of the six on the team were among the recommended students. But Gipson saw something in them: their "mouthiness."

Initially the debate team attracted a number of students. But many didn't stick with it after they saw how much work it would be.

In addition to the six team members who compete, about a dozen other students participate in debate after school.

The debaters spend several hours nearly every Saturday working on their research or arguments. The week before a tournament, they also meet after school every day for several hours. They have a binder with 600 pages of research.

Every debate team in the country argues the same issue. This year's resolution: "The United States federal government should substantially increase social services for persons living in poverty in the United States."

Debaters argue on several topic areas related to the resolution, advocating for or against the following: a "single stop" location for access to social services; extending higher education opportunities to illegal immigrants; targeting Katrina victims to receive more social services; providing housing first and quickly to the homeless before focusing on other necessary social services; and providing unlimited social services to sex workers.

Teams pick their topics to support, but they must prepare to argue against all of the topics in a debate.

"That's the good thing about debate," said Bria Harvey, a junior at Centennial High. "You get to see both sides. It makes us more open to things."

All that work intimidated Claire Johnson, a freshman at Central. She was one of those who dropped out of debate early on.

"At first, it was really hard, the studying," Claire said. "I didn't like the studying very much at all."

But after the team gave a mock debate at Central, she rejoined. It looked like too much fun to miss.

"I love to argue already," Claire said.

Gipson agreed: "I said, 'Put it to good use, girl.'"

(The work might have scared some students, but it brought out the obsessive side of Central sophomore DaNaya Burnett. She's particular about her files.

"Everything for me has to be organized and color-coded," DaNaya said. "I can't put yellow files in with the red."

"Housing would be with Katrina," Gipson joked.

"It's just not acceptable," DaNaya replied.

Because the debate team is the only one in the Champaign and Urbana school districts, it participated in the Chicago Debate League. Gipson asked to participate in a debate coach training session with the league.

Then she talked with the league's executive director, telling him, "My kids down here need this experience to travel and see other gifted kids of color doing something unique."

He agreed to let the team participate as a guest school for one year, requiring them to pay a $2,500 stipend. Regional Office of Education's grants covered the stipend, as well as materials and mileage, hotels and meals when the team traveled to Chicago.

The team debated in five tournaments between November and February. The six team members were divided into teams of two, who took turns making an argument for their case and rebutting their opponents' arguments.

In addition to team awards, individual speakers are recognized. The students recently teased Keyonte about an award he received for poise and compassion shown to his opponents. During his first few debates, he showed attitude rather than compassion.

"His nonverbals were so aggressive," Gipson said. "It was the eyes, the body language, the gesturing. What I always said to Keyonte is, 'Debate is not a fight.'"

The students had to learn to "keep more of a stoic face and speak with passion, not intimidation," Gipson said. "To speak to the judge, not the opponent."

They also learned to take notes quickly and succinctly, so they could rebut their opponents' arguments accurately. They improved their reading comprehension and learned about current events.

To participate in tournaments, the debaters had to keep their grades up, and their behavior – no detentions allowed.

Keyonte had a C in one class after the first debate. Barbara Cook – an attendance secretary at Central and an assistant site coordinator for the regional office who also works with the debate team – let him slide and participate in the next debate.

But then he got a D.

He couldn't debate again until he raised his grade. It didn't take long for him to do so.

"I didn't want debate to be taken from me, because I knew how much it had done for me," Keyonte said.

When Gipson felt Bria was being distracted by electronics during debate practice, she called Bria's mother. And visited the house. And initiated a family conference about the matter.

"I got everything taken from me," Bria said. "Laptop, iPod, cell phone."

She complained recently that she still hasn't had them returned.

"She's a debate champion, and she still doesn't have her electronics," Gipson said.

All that hard work and pushing to improve has paid off.

"I've seen them come from being really insecure about their own ability to having much more confidence," Gipson said. "We heard so much 'I can't' out of this group, and Barb and I saw so much potential."

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Two girls are at a Union party at the University. The music is loud and everyone is dancing to the music. One of the girls bumps into a Champaign resident. The girl proceeds to call her a "townie." This starts an argument and later a confrontation. The resident begins to use profanity towards the girl, as everyone gathers around and the music stops. This is what Odinaka Ezeokoli, senior in LAS, recalls occurring when her friend got into a confrontation at a party with a local resident.

"This was my first time realizing that people really do not like this world," Ezeokoli said.

She is anxious to return to Chicago, and feels she is here only to get a degree. She said she feels no connection with the community because she is not from here.

Heather Downs, a graduate student in sociology, said this is the typical attitude one would find at any college campus in the country. She said this is not a racial phenomenon, but just a phenomenon that students typically do not connect with their outside community. She said that a student can get caught up in a world of social academics, which makes it hard for that student to break away from the world.

"I think this is also a class issue," Downs said. "U of I is a middle-class institution and you will have people of color who come from a variety of classes . but the institution within itself is middle class and it will dictate how students view their surrounding environment."

Ezeokoli lives in Chicago, and outside of going to school here, she said she feels no connection with the city.

"I like Chicago better, but I don't look down on those who are from here," Ezeokoli said.

Downs said typically, students are not concerned and maybe clueless with what is occurring outside the campus. She said this can be described by what sociologists call a social bubble. She said the students will only relate to people who exist in this bubble and they shut out everyone outside the bubble.

"A lot of students aren't identifying themselves as members of other communities, and therefore they are not invested in this community," Downs said. "I think this is damaging to both the University and the outside community."

Lauren Senter, junior in Communications, said the University may play into how students view the local residence of Champaign.

"The students bought into the hype that this University is selling that they are the best and the brightest the nation has to offer," Senter said.

She said students feel since they made it into this school, that they are above those who did not.

"(Students think) I am observably better than the people who work in the kitchen at the dining halls, because that is the best they can do," Senter said.

Downs said this is due to the University being a middle-class institution.

"It is a middle-class institution and it teaches middle-class values," Downs said. "It prepares you for a middle-class job and it is going to reflect middle-class interests."

Gregory Wilson, a graduate student, said he feels the factor of time constraints prevents students from getting involved. He identified reasons students do not volunteer in the community.

"We come to a point in society where students don't feel as though they have to give back to any communities anymore," Wilson said.

He said this type of attitude helps the gap between the community and the campus grow, which he feels is a major problem.

"I think at some point, we just lost that since of urgency," Wilson said.

He said this problem is going to continue to grow because of the students the University admits.

"I think people are coming from more affluent backgrounds and they are emerging from more situations to teach them to sort of just believe in the factor," Wilson said.

He said the University students view the community as people who engage in multiple fights at the University. He said it is this misconception that helps further the separation between the community and the campus.

"We come down from wherever we emerge from and we are trying to tell them that they can't come to our events and they have been here longer than us," Wilson said. "I think there is a systemic pattern of miscommunication and misunderstanding is really the source of the contentious relationship between the two groups."

Downs said the campus is experiencing a class divide. She said the University is middle class and they see everything through that lens.

"The hostility from the community to the campus is described by social class theory," Downs said. "There is an issue of stratification that is economic."

Downs said the economic stratification suggest that people will only be with each other who are in the same social class.

"I think that in our community there are a lot of organizations that need a lot of help and they will benefit from having young people a part of their organization," Downs said.

Oliver Hatchett, senior in Communications, said he feels people who do not interact with the community are missing out on meeting great people. Hatchett owns an entertainment company in Champaign and he said this has helped him meet many of the residents in town.

"Because I throw parties out here, my advertising is primarily done to the community," Hatchett said.

He said the students on campus are not open to new experiences and they can sometimes be closed-minded to new opportunities.

"I think a lot of the times we need to be more accepting, knowing that we are going into their town," Hatchett said.

Hatchett said many of the students do not leave the campus, and as a result, they miss out on the many services the community has to offer.

Ezeokoli added, the campus needs to have more programs that will make the community feel welcomed and this will eventually end the disconnect.

"We need more things on campus besides parties; if there were more programs and interactions it would not be this way," Ezeokoli said.

This is the second part of a three-day series on the relationship between the African-American communities on campus and in Champaign-Urbana.

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This is the third part of a three-day series on the relationship between the African-American communities on campus and in Champaign-Urbana.

A female resident of Champaign stands in front of a crowd of 30 people swaying back and forth humming at first and then bursting into a song. She is dressed in a green head rap, blue shirt and black pants. She claps her hands as a student joins her on stage. They begin harmonizing together. Their voices echo through the coffee shop of the Krannert Art Museum.

This performance was apart of the SPEAK Cafe. SPEAK stands for Songs, Poetry, Expressions, Art and Knowledge.

Heather Downs, a graduate student of sociology, said programs like this are needed to bring the community and the campus together. She said organizations that do outreach programs linking the experience of the campus to the community are the best way to overcome the disconnection. Downs said if the University had classes that required students to go out into the community this would expose students to the idea of outreach.

Professor William Patterson, assistant director of the African-American studies program, with a combination of students and local residences started this monthly open mic event in order to help link the campus and the community together while digitizing the hip-hop generation.

"This serves as an opportunity for black people and black students to be stewards of managing the image of black people and black artists," Patterson said.

Patterson said when he originally constructed this idea he wanted the community to be involved. He wanted SPEAK to be a place where residence and students could meet and address social issues.

"The goal was to get the community on the campus," Patterson said.

Patterson said this task is difficult because not all of the community trusts campus.

He has noticed this barrier more as he tried to connect with the community from the University's side.

"You often hear about being concerned that the University is always taking and not giving back," Patterson said. I think the University gives back, it just gives back in different ways."

He said SPEAK is just one idea to help bridge this gap between the campus and the community.

Gabrielle Pendleton, sophomore in Engineering, is the president of SPEAK. She said the idea started with Patterson's class.

"It started off as an idea, and it is amazing that now it is actually in the works," Pendleton said.

She is in charge of bringing in monthly artists from the community and the campus.

"We are all African-Americans . regardless we are still being discriminated against," Pendleton said.

Stefanie Jones, senior in LAS, is a very active member of SPEAK. She said she is currently working on the Black Power conference, which is set to be held in April.

"I am working on the overall funding of this show and the organization," Jones said.

She said she worked on a committee over the summer to get the effort off the ground.

"Many people on the campus don't know anything about the community and vice versa," Jones said, "We are trying to bring those two sectors together."

Ed Vinci, resident of Champaign, said before SPEAK he never wanted to come to campus because of how he thought the students were.

"People from the community stay away because it is a lack of resources and knowledge," Vinci said.

He started coming around the campus because his fianc‚e was a student here. He said before dating her he did not have the need or feel welcomed to come to campus.

"I was blind to it myself, I did not see all the things that went on because it was not advertised to the community," Vinci said.

Nathaniel Banks, director of the African-American Cultural Program, said efforts like SPEAK are great but the University needs to get more involved.

He said the Chancellor is trying to come up with ideas that would benefit the local community and create programs that would fall under the Land-Grant mission of the University.

"Part of our mission is the community engagement," Banks said. "The black community is a significant percent of the population, and that community needs to be engaged with the same type that takes place with the local farm community or even the areas in Engineering."

He said there need to be more programs like the East St. Louis Project. He said that program is proof that the University can create successful programs to engage the community.

Jinni Sorensen, assistant director to the East St. Louis Project, said this project has existed since the late eighties, and it brings students along with professors into the community to help build its landscape. She said state representatives wanted the University to become involved with the city of East St. Louis. She said the area at the time was impoverished and needed extra assistance from outside sources.

"The University, led by some of its faculty members, took this area under its wing," Sorensen said.

The project is responsible for creating buildings and parks in the community, but there is not a program such as this that exists in Champaign.

Banks said if the University could help in East St. Louis, they can assist with the black community here in Champaign.

"We already have the resources," Banks said. "Rather than seeing it as an aside, we can also view this as an important part of the mission of the University of Illinois."

Patterson said he is on a steering committee that looks at civic engagement at the University.

"The Chancellor's office and the President's office are looking into this whole idea of students' engagement in communities and provide that service, which helps them become stronger citizens and how the University play in this development," Patterson said.

Patterson said he does not know if SPEAK will be back next year, but he feels the program has been successful.

"It is not about rocking the crowd, it is about rocking the world, and you do this by understanding how to create the space for artistic expression," Patterson said.

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Two years ago, Student Affairs and the Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations put out a national search for a new director for the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center (BNAACC) after Nathaniel Banks left to become director of Campus Community Interface Initiatives.

Two years ago, Student Affairs and the Office of Inclusion and Intercultural Relations put out a national search for a new director for the Bruce D. Nesbitt African American Cultural Center (BNAACC) after Nathaniel Banks left to become director of Campus Community Interface Initiatives. The search went a bit longer than expected.

After Banks’ departure, the University suffered from a hiring freeze due to lack of funding, which put the search on hold until March 2009. Since then, the center has been operating with a small staff, a few student workers and Acting Director Nameka Bates.

Last spring, Rory James was selected out of a national pool of candidates in late March 2009 as the new director of the BNAACC. He and three other candidates were choosen to come on campus for an extensive interviewing process with Anna Gonzalez, associate vice chancellor of Student Affairs, and a search committee of academic professionals and African American students on campus.

“During his interview process, I was very impressed and excited with his understanding about the culture center’s history and the African American experience at the University of Illinois,” said Angela Clark, BNAACC assistant program director.

Part of the interviewing process entailed public presentations and a series of meeting and interviews with the stakeholders and students on campus.

Founded 40 years ago, the BNAACC has served as a space on campus to show the promise and potential of African American students as well as educating the campus community and other races of the African American experience.

James, a Chicago native, earned his undergraduate degree in biology at Tuskegee University, a historically black college, and later completed a Masters of Public Health at Tulane University.

Before James came to Illinois, he served as the founding director of University of North Carolina at Ashville’s Intercultural Center.

One of James’ goals is to focus on addressing the needs of marginalized populations within the African American community such as gender, faith and religion, LBGT issues and academia.

“I want to make sure everything I am doing as a director will not only benefit the African American students and the community but the entire campus and the Champaign-Urbana community,” James said.

Growing up in Chicago, he said he learned that people sometimes are put in monolithic groups and he hope to break that grouping and get all students in touch culturally.

“James has really good insight about the changing needs of African American students,” Gonzalez said. “I think Mr. James is very forward thinking and this is why I believe the cultural center was built.”

James is looking to expand his services to ensure there is more diversity in the classrooms and that African American students have the tools they need to deal with issues through focus groups, student retreats, internships and collaborating with other colleges and universities.

“Everything appears overwhelming, but I am ready for the challenge,” James said. “I don’t think I would had taken this job if I did not feel I can do it.”

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CHAMPAIGN – Adrienne Spires has been a counselor, educator and parent of two daughters.

It's that last job that landed her on a panel alongside academics and agency directors who will help decide how to spend a $9 million Champaign County mental health grant.

An interim steering committee appointed this week will begin the planning process for the six-year federal grant, and 10 of the 19 members are teens or parents. The money – $1 million the first year – comes from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA.

The idea is to design a new "system of care" for troubled youths from the bottom up, using input from the people most affected: the clients.

"I think I can be a good asset for the program," Spires said. "I am highly concerned about the community. We've been living here for the past 18 years. My kids attend school here. They're part of extracurricular activities. They go to church in the community."

Spires and one of her daughters are also in "Parenting with Love and Limits," a family therapy program aimed at preventing juvenile delinquency. Her daughter made one "poor choice," Spires said, and was referred to the program.

"It'll be interesting to get the view of families who've been experiencing the situation and how it's affecting them," Spires said at the committee's first meeting Tuesday night.

"Project ACCESS," as it's known, is designed to better coordinate services for children or teens with serious emotional or behavioral problems. It will target families involved in the juvenile justice system, or youths at risk of winding up there, with a particular focus on African-Americans.

SAMHSA requires the governing board to have a majority of parents and youths, and that presents challenges.

"Virtually no one in the country is doing this kind of work the way we're doing it, a family-driven program," said Peter Tracy, executive director of the Champaign County Mental Health Board, which is coordinating the project with Illinois Department of Human Services' Division of Mental Health.

Tracy has talked to colleagues in McHenry County, which received a similar grant four years ago, and "they're still struggling with the governance, getting family and youth representation. It is a huge paradigm shift."

Todd Schroll, project director in McHenry County, said the "Family CARE" program has tried to involve youths and parents at many levels – not just on steering committees but in program planning and even services by having them serve as peer mentors and the like. Parents also want ongoing education about mental health issues, he said.

"It's a challenge to get professionals to see families and youth not as clients but as partners," he said.

Sheila Ferguson, director of the Champaign County Mental Health Center, expects "growing pains" but is also excited about the concept.

The Mental Health Center has clients and family members on its board, and routinely gets input from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill about its services, Ferguson said. It takes more time, but the input is "pretty powerful" and allows the staff to create better programs, she said. Using money wisely is even more important at a time of dwindling resources, she said.

Still, the new family-centered system will be an adjustment, she said. Parents and teens aren't usually available during business hours when agencies are open, and they may need child care or transportation for evening meetings, she said. Parent burnout is also a worry, Schroll said.

Another concern: ensuring all voices are heard without making the group too unwieldy. Spires said some committee members expressed reservations Tuesday about parents and teens having authority over how grant money is spent. She emphasized it will be a collaborative effort, with families as just one component.

"People have to realize parents and youth aren't going to have power to write checks," said Spires, who holds a master's degree in educational administration. She's also worked as a counselor and teen-parent group coordinator at the Mental Health Center.

Ferguson said it will take time for the group to build trust.

"This is something new to the community," Spires said. "Everyone has to come to the table with an open mind. It's going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of passion."

Other parents and teens on the committee already have ideas. Hope Malik, 34, would like to see some money channeled directly to needy families or youth workshops. She attends a parent support group through the UI Psychological Services Center, referred there by a counselor after her daughter had academic and behavior problems in school.

Nate Jackson, 17, and Antoine Anderson, 18, are members of Peer Ambassadors, a group created to be the youth voice for the project.

They'd like to see community centers with activities for youths to "keep them off the streets" and let them "get away and chill for a while," Anderson said.