Plans to draw more black men to — and through — college…
Here’s someone to keep an eye on, UPenn professor Shaun Harper, who is doing some interesting work on the dismal track record black men have in higher education. Harper will be speaking on the topic tomorrow at Philander Smith College in Arkansas.
From the college press release:
Less than one-third of Black males who enter colleges and universities actually obtain bachelor’s degrees, which is the lowest college completion rate among both sexes and all racial/ethnic groups. Among those who persist, engagement in educationally purposeful activities is woefully low.
Black men in higher education in Arkansas perform at an even lower level, with only about 25% graduating from public and private colleges in six years. Last year, after reviewing the poor academic performance of the Black male students at Philander Smith, officials at the college created a Black Male Initiative to develop programs and strategies to improve success. As the initiative enters its second year, the forum and lecture by Harper is designed for all colleges and universities from across the state to engage in a dialogue about the challenges facing Black males on college campuses, why they occur, and the strategies that might be employed to improve their success.
Little Rock not on your travel plans for tomorrow? Here’s a profile of Harper published last year, which explains his philosophy. An excerpt:
According to the researcher, some 67.6 percent of Black male students who begin college never complete their degrees. Black males have the worst college attrition rate among both sexes and all racial/ethnic groups in higher education, Harper says.
“Black men comprised only 4.3 percent of all students enrolled at American institutions of higher education, the exact same percentage as in 1976. Literally, no progress has been made in increasing participation rates among this population in over a quarter of a century,” he has written.
Answers to solving low Black male college enrollment and completion rates, Harper believes, lie largely in the research he has compiled. Currently working through some 4,500 pages of interview material and data, he is writing both a 40-page report and a book, which should yield strategies that are informed by the experiences of successful male students.
Dr. Shaun Harper, left, chats, with Ruben Alexander (center) and Raymond Roy on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Alexander and Roy participated in Harper’s National Black Male College Achievement Study.
“It’s been pretty well documented that Black male students - in particular at all levels of schooling - are the population for whom teachers, administrators and others tend to hold the lowest expectations. I’ve long felt that no student rises to low expectations. In many ways, the guys in this national study have exceeded the low expectations that have been set for Black males,” Harper says.
Harper’s work with the Black male investigation won an important endorsement from the Lumina Foundation. This past summer, the Indianapolis-based education foundation approved a $649,200 grant to fund distribution in February 2008 of the 40-page report Harper is producing from the study’s data. The grant will also fund implementation of study recommendations at six campuses over a three-year period. The participating campuses will be chosen from among those that submit proposals.
“What we really need to know now more than ever before is what is it that successful African-American male students do, what kind of backgrounds do they come from, and what were their pre-college experiences. Are there specific things that institutions do to help their students succeed?” says Dr. George D. Kuh, the Chancellor’s Professor of Higher Education and the director of the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University.
“My suspicion is that what works for African-American male students in terms of the kinds of support structures, early warning systems, and college bridge programs will work for all students,” adds Kuh, one of Harper’s former professors.
“He’s examining African-American males in terms of high achievement rather than in terms of failure, which is the more typical approach,” says Dr. Estela Mara Bensimon, a professor of higher education and the director of the Center for Urban Education at the University of Southern California.
SCHOLAR ON THE MOVE
In addition to winning the Lumina Foundation’s support for the Black male study, Harper’s career has taken a recent turn with a move this past summer to the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn, Harper joins a cadre of influential higher education research scholars that includes Drs. Laura Perna and Marybeth Gasman.
Although he is best known among education scholars as an expert on Black males in higher education, Harper examines “race and gender in higher education; innovative approaches to retaining racial/ethnic minority students; the effects of college environments on student behaviors and outcomes; student affairs at historically Black colleges and universities; and the gains associated with purposeful student engagement, both inside and outside of the classroom.” One of the strengths Harper brings to his research is experience in student affairs and program administration. While a graduate student at Indiana University, Harper held administrative jobs, including assistant director of admissions for IU’s Kelley School of Business MBA Program
Tags: minority college
