African American Male Initiative hopes to raise support and graduation rates among black, male students.
“One out of every two African-American males on Ohio University’s campus will not graduate.”
That statement, made by Deborah Thompson, an assistant professor of political science, reflects statistics from Ohio University’s Office of Institutional Research.
Recent graduation rate data shows, in one group of students, only 35 percent of African-American males graduated in four years; 53 percent did so in five years.
The average university four- and five-year graduation rates are 49 and 64 percent, respectively.
To increase those rates, Thompson, along with other faculty and students, created the African American Male Initiative at OU in 2013. The program aims to bring together a diverse group to address how to help black men succeed in and graduate from college.
In the wake of calls from some students for OU to do more to support black students as racial tensions boil nationally, the initiative represents an existing effort to help a minority group that began long before events in Ferguson or Staten Island.
In the spring of 2013, Thompson received a $16,500 grant from Konneker Fund for Learning and Discovery. The initiative must design, implement and get results by June in 2015 to be able to apply for ongoing funding.
Chris Caldwell, administrative specialist for African American Studies and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, said there are many reasons black men may have trouble graduating, including a lack of familiarity with social conventions.
“If you’re one black male to every 100 white students, there is a concept of not having a lot of individuals who have a similar level of experience as your own,” said Caldwell, who is also a member of the AAMI steering committee.
About 35 percent of black, male students didn’t graduate college in 2005, the most recent data available, according to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.
Caldwell argued some male, black students have to take remedial classes upon reaching OU that costs thousands of dollars but don’t help students graduate.
“Most of these students aren’t even getting to the 3000 or 4000 level courses,” he said.
The goals of AAMI are to focus on mentorship, academic success, professional development, and student involvement.
Cecil Walters, director of the Office for Multicultural Student Access and Retention, said attention is the key to retention.
“The primary reason these students are dropping out is because some populations at OU receive more attention than other populations,” he said.
Walters said that his advice to AAMI is to focus on retention goals and values, specifically self-exploration, leadership, and service.
“There should be opportunities for men to speak in small and large groups about their feelings, aspirations, insecurities, and doubts,” he said. “What we see and hear is that men feel they don’t have safe spaces to do that.”
AAMI held a forum on Monday for students to come and voice their concerns.
Malindi Robinson, a junior studying strategic communication, said she believes that graduation rates aren’t low for African-American males because of a lack of intelligence or ambition.
“It’s a lot deeper than ‘he just stopped going to class,’ ” she said. “It’s because it’s easy to feel isolated.”
Nile Harris, a sophomore studying chemistry, echoed Robinson’s concerns.
“When I went to orientation, I was literally the only black student,” Harris said. “I didn’t know it was possible; there was like 500 people.”
The Monday forum had 80 student attendees who split into groups to learn more about the importance of academic success, professional development, mentorship, student involvement and black masculinities.
Harris said he wishes to bring in black men from different careers to speak to students.
“You don’t hear about a black person becoming more than a basketball player, football player, or a rapper,” Harris said. “They need to see someone so they can think, ‘you know what? I can do it.’”
“We have to build a big momentum so that when these kids go home they can tell their family,” said Matthew Carpenter, a junior studying political science. “Then we just have to keep the ball rolling after that.”
The problem of black men not graduating extends beyond the black community.
“No one wins when people drop out of college,” Caldwell said. “The student who dropped out didn’t win. The family that has to support the burden of debt didn’t win. The university didn’t win. Broader society didn’t win. Future employers didn’t win.”
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