This Friday I am celebrating the New School, that rising generation of young men and women of all races who, having already demonstrated during this primary season their transcendence of the older generations’ divisive race politics, show in the following video their unwillingness to rely on traditional politics of race and intellectual difference.
I came across this short documentary, which asks African American and white high schools students to comment on the widely researched and reported Black/white achievement gap, as I was researching commentaries on race and educational attainment. The students in this video are thoughtful and independent. Their comments are a refreshing, inspiring challenge to the lazy, binaristic fashion in which racialized frameworks have traditionally been relied upon to explain differences in achievement whose roots are actually much more complex than some preconceived notion of the difference between Black and white people.
These young men and women’s refusal to accept out of hand the notion that white students do better than Black students in all educational contexts is but one more indication to me that the racial consciousness of the upcoming generation of scholars, workers, and activists is far more advanced than that of my parents’ generation, the baby boom generation, my own generation, or even that of the much storied generation x.
2000-02 Northwestern Alumni Association president Ava Harth Youngblood, with Kellogg School of Business Alums Debra Parker and Gwen Gilbert Cohen.
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It is only within the last 30 years that most majority white universities have begun to address issues of anti-Black racism on their campuses and in their admissions processes. When it comes to Black people and U.S. higher education, the relationship is long and turbulent; and so it would behoove a majority white university such as Northwestern to at least engage in some sort of open process of consultation with Black students, faculty, and alumni before decideding to backpedal on something as significant as an honorary degree offered to a Black public figure.
Diverse Issues in Higher Educationreports that Northwestern University Black alumni, spurred on by the seemingly unilateral decision by University President Harvey Bienen to rescind his offer of an honorary degree to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, have started an online petition demanding that their alma mater make dramatic changes in how they address the interests and needs of Black members of the campus community. Diverse Issues reporter Margaret Kamara explains:
Northwestern University’s decision to rescind an invitation to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to receive an honorary degree was the last straw for many Black alumni, who have started an online petition that calls for changes to how the university treats Black students and the Black community, including an investigation into the decrease in Black student enrollment.
Although the petition, with nearly 1,500 signatures as of Thursday, asks the administration to award Wright the honorary degree as originally planned at the university’s commencement Friday, the petition really is about correcting injustices, says Ce Cole Dillon, president of Northwestern’s Black Alumni Association and member of the university’s Alumni Association Board of Directors. In addition to the decreasing Black enrollment — Blacks made up 9.6 percent of the undergraduate student body in 1976 compared to 5.5 percent in 2005 — they say the university is acting insensitive and rules aren’t applied consistently when it comes to Blacks.
Alumni decry the decision to withdraw the university’s offer of an honorary Doctorate of Sacred Theology degree to Wright as unilateral, since it was not discussed in a review committee. During the past few months, parts of Wright’s controversial sermons were aired as people questioned the Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama’s past and his relationship with Wright.
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In addition to the Wright decision and decreasing Black student enrollment, the petition also criticizes the decision to bypass a Black professor for a permanent dean position when that professor had served on an interim basis in that position and was a finalist in the search.
In an earlier blog post on this topic I suggested that the University’s decision to withdraw their offer of an honorary degree from the Rev. Wright was indefensible, given their recent history of granting honorary doctorates to public figures who have made incendiary remarks about marginalized groups. This choice is even more questionable given the University’s choice as a replacement for Rev. Wright. Reporter Kamara elaborates:
Northwestern’s president Henry Bienen announced that Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago, would be the speaker at the university’s commencement and would receive an honorary doctor of law degree.
Though Daley is a household name in Chicago, in the Black community his name brings up a painful memory. When Daley was Cook County state’s attorney in the 1980s, he allegedly failed to investigate allegations that some Chicago police tortured Black men into confessing crimes they did not commit. In January, the city approved a nearly $20 million settlement with four former death row inmates who alleged a former police commander and others tortured them. A federal probe is underway into allegations that police tortured more than 100 people over a 20-year period.
“When the university made those decisions they were not applying the same standards all across the board,” says Dillon. “This is where the lens of racism comes in. Rev. Wright is accused of committing a crime of being unpatriotic,” while Daley is accused of failing to act when learning that Black men were subject to real criminal offenses.
Apparently statements that can be interpreted as unpatriotic are considered a greater threat to Northwestern’s reputation than actions and policies that are patently racist. I doubt, however, that this hierarchy of values is expressed anyone in the University’s minority recruitment materials.
While searching the web yesterday, I happened upon The Gradebook, an education newsblog maintained by St. Petersburg Times writer Jeffrey S. Solochek. I was pleased to read that, once again, Florida A&M University (FAMU) has been named the top producer of Black bachelor’s degree holders. According to Diverse Issues in Higher Education, FAMU graduated 1,256 Black students during the 2006-2007 school year. Click HERE to read Solocheck’s blog post on this subject.
While the blogger’s post was neutral, the readers’ comments were disturbingly negative, with respodents criticizing everything from the rigor of a FAMU education (“#1 in degrees does not mean best students, especially when you are fixing grades [ahem, law school]”) to very existince of historically Black colleges (“FAMU should be the number one school for all races and not just one. We do live in the 21st century right?”).
One poster went so far as to criticize FAMU’s graduation rate, writing, “They sure don’t talk about the 32 percent graduation rate now do they!” Apparently this poster is under the impression that FAMU’s graduation rate is so low as to call in to question the validity or relevance of FAMUs number one position as producer of Black college grads.
My research indicates that the 4- year graduation rate at Florida A&M University is somewhere between 32 and 35 percent. They’re 6-year graduation rate, which is the number most often used for comparisons between schools, is 44%. So, I’d like to put FAMU’s graduation rate into context. At the end of this post I have created a listing I have made of the graduation rates at several other U.S. public universities, including HBCUS and majority white institutions. This list reveals that FAMU’s 44% 6-year graduation rate, while low in comparison to the most selective public universities (like UC Berkeley, University of Michigan, and UCLA), falls somewhere in the middle range of public universities, in general.
Graduation day photo of Emily Smith, Talladega College, early 1900s. The daughter of Charles Smith, Jr., she would go on to marry the Reverend Benjamin Franklin Mallard. Source: Schomburg Center, Harlem, NY.
Delta Sigma Theta and AAAS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, maintain an outstanding resource that would appeal to anyone interested in learning more about today’s Black scientists. Back in 2006 AAAS produced the African-Americans in Science: Podcast for Black History Month series. Produced by Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and the Delta Research and Educational Foundation (DREF), in partnership with the AAAS Directorate for Education and Human Resources Programs, this series was part of the 5-year Science and Everyday Experiences (SEE) Initiative.
The African-Americans in Science: Podcast for Black History Month series consists of 19 different 45-minute interviews with African American scientists discussing their research interests and the application of their work to larger social, cultural, and environmental problems. The profiled scientists include:
Dr. Daryl Basham
Dr. Taft Broome
Dr. Kimberly Jones
Dr. Eugene Deloatch
Dr. Yolanda Moses
Dr. Georgia Dunston
Dr. Fay Grimsley
Dr. Vivian Pinn
Dr. Saundra McGuire
Dr. Maria Johnson
Dr. James Gates
Dr. Kim Weems
Dr. Isiah Warner
Dr. Dana Greene-McDowelle
Dr. Erich Jarvis
Dr. Tasha Inniss (Mathematician)
Dr. Miquel Antoine
Dr. T. Joan Robinson
Dr. Beth Brown
You can find this podcast at PodNova, Pluggd and other similar sites, or on iTunes. If you’re a new podcast listener, here’s a link to the African-Americans in Science: Podcast for Black History Month files at Pluggd.com: LINK TO AFRICAN-AMERICANS IN SCIENCE: PODCAST FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH.
At this HBCU, victory has only one color, Lady Hawk maroon.
With the inroads and successes of white students at historically Black colleges and universities already making national headlines, comes the somewhat less widely reported but nevertheless thought-provoking news out of the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore (UMES), that the bowling team at this historically Black public university become the first team from an HBCU to win a Division I NCAA championship.
How is this story related to the widely disseminated tale of Joshua Packwood’s rise to valedictorian status at the historically Black Morehouse college? Well, both are clearly demonstrative that white students at HBCUs can and do receive the same support in reaching the highest levels of achievment as their African American peers.
You see, only one of the 11 members of the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore bowling team is Black, and she did not play in the championship match. Coach Sharon Brummell, an African American, is very proud of her team’s ability to rally in a high-stress situation. Said Brummell (in an interview from NCAASports.com), “Today, these young ladies fought. When we were bowling against Vanderbilt earlier today and we were down three games, it got a little scary. Then Jessica Worsley decides to pick up a 2-10 split and it just seemed to change the whole momentum of the game and they came out fighting today when we were starting out in the championship.”
With this victory, Coach Brummell’s Lady Hawks become the first historically Black college or University to win a women’s title at the Division I level, and the coach herself becomes the first woman coach to ever win an NCAA bowling championship, a fact that brings her great joy. She explains, “Somebody told me I was the first woman to win a championship. We’ve been to all five championships and finally a woman wins. It’s a wonderful feeling, it really is.”
Coach Brummell brings home the trophy after the Lady Hawks’ victory at the NCAA championships in Omaha. You can read an interview with Coach Brummell at HBCU Sports Blog. Click on THIS LINK.
Graduates of Spelman college at Commencement 2002. Today Black women make up roughly two thirds of all African American college graduates.
As the 2007 – 2008 school year comes to a close, there is much positive news to report on the state of Black progress in U.S. colleges and universities. Still, though, some of the old problems remain entrenched. One such issue is the gender gap between Black men and women in higher education. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education(JBHE) reported in their most recent bulletin (6/12/08) that even as the nation is experiencing unpredecented growth in the sheer numbers of Black college graduates, the growing gender gap in degree attainment between men and women of African descent continues cast an ominous shadow over our communities. The JBHE describes this growing gulf between Black men’s and women’s achievement on college campuses:
New data from the U.S. Department of Education shows a persisting gender gap in African-American bachelor’s degree attainments.
In the 2005-06 academic year, black women earned 94,341 bachelor’s degrees, almost double the number earned by black men. Black women now earn two thirds of all bachelor’s degrees obtained by African Americans.
Do not be mistaken, black men, too, have made progress. Over the past decade, the number of bachelor’s degrees earned by black men is up more than 40 percent. But the result pales in comparison to the huge gains posted by black women.
The economy may be teetering on the edge of a recession, and gas prices may be inching up closer and closer to the unreason; but for Black leaders in academe the outlook is very positive. Witness the following professors and administrators who have been appointed to major administrative positions a several of the nations graduate and professional schools:
Dr. Eli Jones was named Dean of the E.J. Ourso College of Business at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism, an MBA, and a PhD from Texas A&M University. With this appointment Jones becomes Ourso’s first non-white dean. Prior to his appointment he served as professor of marketing and associate dean for Executive Education Programs in the Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston. The LSU Press release announcing his appointment describes his outstanding record and unique qualifications for the leadership of the Ourso College of Business:
Jones has published 30 articles in major marketing and management journals and co-authored two books: “Selling ASAP: Art, Science, Agility, Performance” and “Strategic Sales Leadership: BREAKthrough Thinking for BREAKthrough Results.” He currently serves on four editorial review boards and on the board of directors of Administaff, the nation’s leading professional employer organization. Jones is the chairman of the Compensation Committee.
Jones has won 10 Excellence in Teaching awards at the college, university, national and international levels, and he has taught sales and sales management at the undergraduate and MBA levels, and a doctoral seminar in marketing strategy at the University of Houston. He also has been a visiting professor at Vlerick School of Management in Belgium, in the MBA program at Tuck Business School at Dartmouth and in the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell. He has taught leadership, sales strategies and customer relationship management to senior- and mid-level executives in China, Dubai, France, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Trinidad, United Kingdom and in the United States.
“Although the search committee was presented with many outstanding candidates, Dr. Jones was clearly a front runner from the start,” said LSU Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development Brooks Keel, who chaired the dean search committee. “In addition to his credentials as a scholar and administrative leader, his business background, experience and people skills will serve him well in his role of building relations with the business community in the region.”
Before becoming a professor, Jones worked in sales and sales management for three Fortune 100 companies: Quaker Oats, Nabisco and Frito-Lay.
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On Friday, Aprill 11, JoAnne Epps was named dean of Temple University’s James E. Beasley School of Law. Dean Epps is a graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, CT and Yale Law School (1976). The Philadelphia Inquirer describes the career path that preceded her rise to the helm at the Beasley School of Law:
This post was inspired by an article in the Daily News Record, based in Harrisonburg, Virginia. The article begins with an anecdote from a Black male student on the James Madison University football team. The student, Marvin Brown, recalls a curious observation that he made during his freshman year at the school: “When I first got here, it seemed like every African American student was an athlete.”
Brown’s perception was both correct and incorrect; most Black students on the JMU campus are not athletes, but a disproportionate number of them are. In this passage the Black male demographic at James Madison U is described by Daily News Record reporter, Mike Barber:
[…] a study this year indicated that an uncommonly high percentage of JMU’s black male student are indeed athletes – more than a third, in fact.
The January 2008 report by Inside Higher Ed, using data collected from the NCAA’s annual survey of graduation rates, showed that just 204 of Madison’s 5,780 male students were black in the 2005-2006 school year. Of those, 34 percent – or 70 students – were athletes. And of those, the study reported, 58 were football players.
By contrast, 14 percent of the University of Virginia’s black male students and 12 percent of Virginia Tech’s were athletes.*
*To read the rest of this article from the Harrisonburg Daily News Record, click THIS LINK.
All of this points to a peculiar value system among colleges and universities, especially in states (like Virginia) in which race-based affirmative action has come under fire. Colleges vary on the degree to which they will defend their race-based affirmative action programs; but colleges with major (and often not-so-major) athletic programs remain staunch their support for athletics-based affirmative action.
Earlier this week I blogged on the fact that in 2006 (the most recent year for which there are firm statistics) more Black students graduated from college than in any previous year in U.S. history.
It gave me a lot of pleasure to write a post that so strongly counters the widespread perception, even among African Americans, that Black youth are more violent, more delinquent, more disrespectful, more promiscuous, more truant, more addicted, more clueless than ever before.
For those who met with surprise the notion that the numbers of Black youth who are graduating from college is on the rise, here’s a related fact: in many areas, the negative exploits of Black youth are on the decline.
Late last week a number of U.S. and international news outlets broke the story that, overall, risky behaviors among U.S. teens are on the decline. Reuters reports that the results of a new CDC survey of over 14,000 Black, White, and Hispanic/Latino(a) teens in grades nine through 12 indicate that, “Fewer U.S. high school students are having sex or using drugs and alcohol compared to the 1990s.”
Among the study’s indicators that risky behaviors have declined among Black teens in particular are the following:
66 percent of Black students in the study reporting having had sex, down from 82 percent in 1991.
28 percent of Black students reporting having had sex with four or more partners, down from 43 percent in 1991.
Black involvement in sexual behavior is greater than either white or Hispanic/Latino(a) teens, but the declines in these areas are greater than those of white teens. There was little or no decline in either of these areas for Hispanic/Latino(a) teens.
Among Black youth, marijuana use has declined 7.1 percent since it’s peak in 1997.
Methamphetamine use, lower among Black youth than among white or Hispanic/Latino(a) youth has, nonetheless, declined from its peak of 3.1 percent of Black students reporting its use in 2003 to 1.9 percent in 2007, when the CDC survey took place.
Similarly, cigarette use, while lower among Black youth than among either their white or Hispanic/Latino(a) counterparts, has decreased just the same. Cigarette use has decreased from 22.7 percent at its peak in 1997, to 11.6 in 2007 (compared to 16.7 for Hispanic/Latino(a) students in 2007 and 23.2 percent for white students in 2007).
The same goes from alcohol use which, while lower among Black youth than among their white and Hispanic/Latino(a) counterparts, has decreased significantly. Alcohol use among Black students has decreased from a high of 42.5 percent in 1993 to only 34.5 percent in 2007. This number is considerably lower than both the proportion of Hispanic/Latino(a) students who have used alcohol (47.6 percent in 2007) and the proportion of white students who have used alcohol (47.3 percent in 2007).
