WS Chronicle

Tariq Alkebu-Lan, a N.C. A&T junior computer engineering student from Richmond, Va., was recently named the first Tom Joyner Foundation Hercules Scholar.

While maintaining a 4.0 grade point average, Alkebu-Lan serves as a member of North Carolina Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, the STEM Club and a Living Learning Community mentor.

During his time at the university, Alkebu-Lan admits he was greatly inspired by a quote shared by his professors.
“The harder I worked, the luckier I got,” he recalled. “To me (It meant) just work hard and eventually you are going to break down barriers and you’re going to be able pull off big things. You just have to be willing to put in the work.”
Alkebu-Lan aspires to be professional licensed engineer.

N.C. A&T is the Tom Joyner School of the Month for October 2013. During this month, the university and the Tom Joyner Foundation are working to raise funds for student scholarships. As a part of the campaign, each week the foundation selects a male student with a grade point average of at least 3.5 to receive a $1,500 scholarship. The students who are selected demonstrate campus leadership and community involvement.

The Hercules Scholarship is named after Joyner’s father, the late Hercules Joyner, who was a strong supporter of higher education. To be a candidate for the scholarship, students must be male, attend a Foundation “School of the Month,” have a grade point average of at least 3.5 and be a campus leader involved in the community with a career goal toward making a difference in the quality of life for his race.
Founded in 1998, the Tom Joyner Foundation has focused on its primary mission of helping to keep students enrolled in Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The Foundation has raised more than $60 million to help keep students enrolled in black colleges, has assisted more than 25,000 students and worked with more than 100 HBCUs.