Takiyah Nur Amin, an instructor in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech, has been selected as Miss Black Virginia USA 2006 by the Miss Black USA Pageant and Scholarship Foundation.

The annual competition provides scholarship opportunities that allow state delegates to pursue and achieve their educational, career, and personal goals. The national competition for the title of Miss Black USA 2006 will take place in October in Washington, D.C.

Amin is an alumna of Virginia Tech’s School of the Arts where she earned a Master of Fine Arts Degree in arts administration in 2004. She has served the university as the coordinator for Multicultural Programs. Currently, she is an instructor in the Africana Studies Program and as outreach coordinator at the Race and Social Policy Research Center. Her academic research has been presented across the nation and abroad, including Canada and Mexico.

Amin’s pageant platform as Miss Black Virginia USA 2006 is “Shop Talk: Taking Black Women’s Health to the Streets”. Through this innovative educational outreach program, Takiyah will present workshops in Virginia beauty salons, barbershops, nail salons and spas on the leading causes of death amongst black women—HIV/AIDS, heart disease, cancer, diabetes and stroke.

“I hope to have a positive impact on Black women's health and to reach underserved populations who might not normally seek out information on these topics or be reached through traditional outreach efforts,” said Amin.

For more information about the Miss Black USA Pageant and Scholarship Foundation, please visit www.missblackusa.org.

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