East St. Louis Center

The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Center for the Performing Arts plans to bring Broadway to the Metro East with its summer enrichment program, beginning Monday, June 11. 

Broadway is the theme of the seven-week summer enrichment program. “I am thrilled to do music, dance and theatrical numbers from Broadway,” said Jack Williams, director of the SIUE East St. Louis Center for the Performing Arts. “Our students are going to enjoy learning the perf...

Tunes from Chaka Khan, James Brown, Hezekiah Walker and more will help set the stage for a rhythmic, soulful and enlightening evening at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Charter High School’s (CHS) LOVE of Music event, where CHS students will perform. 

The Legacy Opportunity Versed Empowerment (LOVE) event will begin at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, June 30 in the Multipurpose Room on the East St. Louis Higher Education Campus, 601 James R. Thompson Blvd. in East St. Lo...

Following a comprehensive national search led by search committee chairs Phyleccia Cole and Kim Durr and involving numerous constituency groups, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Chancellor Randy Pembrook is pleased to announce the appointment of Jamie Ball, JD, as director of the Office of Equal Opportunity, Access and Title IX Coordination (EOA). Ball assumes her new duties effective Monday, June 18.

Ball arrives on campus after serving as the first institutional compliance officer/Ti...

Students’ colorful handprints are artfully displayed in paintings at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Head Start/Early Head Start Centers at Lovejoy and Helen Davis. 

The handprints are part of an original mural created by Theresa Hitchcock, SIUE art enrichment graduate student at the Lovejoy Head Start Center in Brooklyn, according to Kay Robertson, center coordinator. The mural’s message reads: “Rooted in love, joy will grow!” 

“Theresa wanted...

In his trademark gripping, combustible and yet reverential way, Dr. Cornel West, well-known political and social activist, Harvard University professor, best-selling author and theologian, called on people to continue in the tradition of the great African Americans who fought for justice and equality by becoming “love warriors.” West was the main attraction at West Fest 2018, a daylong multidisciplinary approach to art and “conch-us-nest” at the Southern Illinois Universi...

The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Charter High School (CHS) 2018 Graduating Class made history with its cumulative earning power of nearly $4 million in scholarships. The 28 seniors were lauded for their scholastic accomplishments during CHS’s commencement ceremony Friday, May 18 at Morris University Center’s Meridian Ballroom. 

“This Charter High School graduating class is an amazing one. The students have some staggering numbers,” said S...

Lore’al Perkins, a senior at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Charter High School (CHS), has packed celery, carrots, broccoli and peppers, in an array of yellow, red and orange, into her glass mason jar. 

She is waiting patiently in line for the cucumbers, cranberries, sunflower seeds and spinach. “I think salad in a jar is a cool way to eat vegetables on the run,” said Perkins. 

Of the 25 participants, Perkins was one of 11 CHS students from...

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville is participating in the Summer Food Service Program.

Meals will be provided to all SIUE East St. Louis Center Summer Program enrolled children 18 years of age and under free of charge. Acceptance and participation requirements for the program and all activities are the same for all regardless to race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability, and there will be no discrimination in the course of the meal service. 

Any person who believes that...

The exhibit opening of “Katherine Dunham: A Life of Dance, Activism and Anthropology” was held Friday, April 27 at the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Center (ESLC). The renowned dancer, anthropologist, and social activist founded the Performing Arts Training Center (PATC) at the ESLC in 1967 and adopted the City of East St. Louis as her second home around the same time. 

While Dunham’s name is not foreign in East St. Louis, where the Katherine Du...

Rhythmic and melodious talent was on display at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis After School Performing Arts Program Spring Recital on Wednesday, April 25 at Dunham Hall Theater. Approximately 25 students, ages 6-17, performed before a crowd of family and friends. 

“Being back on this stage holds a special place in my heart, because I am an SIUE music alum,” said SIUE Chancellor Randy Pembrook, as he welcomed the audience. “But tonight, I am Mary ...

Sometimes when Ester McNeil wakes up, she can hear her son’s measured notes coming from the living room on a piano identified, donated and delivered by Southern Illinois University Edwardsville staff and students. 

“I was surprised to learn that we were getting a piano, and I was excited for him,” said the Cahokia native regarding her 14-year-old son Camaron Johnson, a piano student in the SIUE East St. Louis After School Performing Arts Program. “I was grateful to ...

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville faculty, staff and student volunteers provided expert knowledge, confidence-boosting encouragement and inspiring advice to 32 of the 54 students from St. Clair County participating in the NAACP’s East St. Louis ACT-SO (Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological, Scientific Olympics) program.

Known as the “Olympics of the Mind,” ACT-SO is a yearlong achievement program designed to recruit, stimulate and encourage high academic and cultural ...

Nearly four years ago, when 11-year-old Edwardsville native Rain Jennings told his mother he wanted to learn how to do ventriloquism, the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Center (ESLC) staff member did not think he would end up on Steve Harvey’s “Little Big Shots” or NBC’s “Show Me St. Louis.” 

Rain’s pre-recorded ventriloquism act will appear on “Little Big Shots” at 7 p.m. Sunday, April 8, according to his moth...

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Center’s (ESLC) Veterans Upward Bound program will join more than 30 organizations to host the Spring 2018 St. Louis Regional Area Homeless Veterans Stand Down from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, April 21 at 1521 Market St. in St. Louis. 

“The purpose of the Stand Down event is to provide resources for veterans who are in need,” according to Calvin Yancey, ESLC Veterans Upward Bound program director and Stand Down committe...

Sixty-four-year-old Larry Haney of East St. Louis wants to keep a watchful eye on the numbers that affect his health and learn better ways of improving it. He joined about 20 others recently at a Success And Continuing Knowledge (S.A.C.K.) Lunch and Learn Program at the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville East St. Louis Learning Resource Center. 

Margie Nahass, registered nurse, physician assistant, and health educator and advocate for the Christian Activity Center in East St. Louis,...