The Commercial Appeal February 26, 2011 Black students trail peers in graduation rates at Memphis-area universities By Richard Morgan This year at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, the flagship public college in a state where 37 percent of the population is black, black men comprise just 5.7 percent of the total student population. Of the four major college student demographics -- black men, black women, white men and white women -- black men are not just the rarest, they also graduate at the lowest rates. For example, in 2010, 8.25 percent of all degrees the University of Memphis awarded went to black men. That year, 25.53 percent of degrees went to black women, 26.23 percent to white men, and 33.82 percent to white women. In Memphis, 60 percent of the population is black, but U of M is almost twice as likely to award degrees to white students than black ones -- and four times more likely to give them to white women over black men. At the convocation that began her college life at U of M, Ebony Jackson, 22, now a junior majoring in education, remembers being told, "Look to your left. Look to your right. One of those people will drop out." She ignored it. "In my mind," she said, "I was like, 'yeah, right.' But then I saw it." Jackson said she has seen about 40 black friends -- especially men -- drop out for various reasons. She and three other black female students sitting at a table in the University Center cafeteria all cited similar figures. "Slim pickings keep getting slimmer," she said. It's been that way since the beginning: Of the Memphis State Eight, the eight students who broke the color barrier at Memphis State University in 1959, only three graduated from the institution. Even today at historically black LeMoyne-Owen College, the six-year graduation rate for 2009 was 16 percent, down from 22 percent the previous year. "As a society, we only value black men for two things: athletics and entertaining," said Walter Kimbrough, the self-titled "hip-hop president" of Philander-Smith College, a historically black institute in Little Rock. "People think you're a sissy boy or whatever if you study, if you say you want to be a scientist. There's no kudos among friends, at home, not even at church. We have to change that." Upon arriving on campus in December 2004, with a graduation rate around 11 percent, Kimbrough began putting together his Black Male Initiative, which debuted in 2007 and incorporated resonant events, such as a session on how to tie neckties led by Kwame Jackson, the runner-up finalist from the first season of NBC's "The Apprentice." Last year, Philander-Smith's graduation rate had more than doubled, to 23 percent. "Men don't ask for help," said Kimbrough, "and black men especially are not going to ask for help from men in suits because those men are so alien to the black experience. We need to build bridges and make people comfortable with the professional world." Black male students see few reflections of themselves in the faculty at U of M. Of 917 faculty members there, 29 are black men and 53 are black women. Sitting in a U of M study lounge, wearing a suit, "because sometimes I like to rock a suit," Xavier Jones, 20, a junior majoring in business management, recounted a time when he told a professor he would miss a class because he had to travel out of state for a school-related duty. "Oh, what sport do you play?" the professor asked him. Jones then explained he was heading to a leadership conference and was not a varsity athlete. "I can't get mad because that's how some people were raised," he said. "This is Memphis. I might have to study with some old man -- a 70-year-old white professor -- who might have been the guy hosing guys like me down in the streets back in the day. All I know is, if I'm trying to integrate their world, I better be doing my best." Marybeth Gasman, a higher education professor at University of Pennsylvania who wrote the book "Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Triumphs, Troubles, and Taboos" as well as many journal studies on the black college experience, echoed students' concern that some college faculty members express racial bias. "Faculty will act shocked that a black student will answer questions well or with insight. And even react with suspicion of, 'Hmm, how did you know that?'" said Gasman, who grew up in suburban Nashville. "What I hear from white parents or white students is, 'Well, I did it on my own so black students should too.' Well, no, because family money is not something you did. People reacting to your skin color is not something you did. The portrayal of your race in culture is not something you did." Ralph Faudree, U of M's provost, said the three reasons students drop out are money, grades and acceptance. "You try to take race out of it," Faudree said of the graduation rates. "We have parts of western Tennessee where only 8 percent of people in the county have bachelor's degrees, regardless of race." Faudree said part of the problem, as well, is tempering expectations: "If you got a C-plus in introductory anatomy and physiology, for example, that's a dead ringer for changing your major. You know, no, you're not going to be a doctor or even a nurse. Figure something else out." Asked about the lower rates for black male students in particular, Faudree defended his campus. "Look, we may not have many black students, but it's better than at some place like UT-Knoxville," he said, "where you can't even find a barbershop that meets your needs." UT's six-year graduation rate for white students, according to the U.S. Department of Education for the class of 2008 (the most recent year published by the department), is 60.2 percent; for black students: 58.4 percent. U of M's six-year graduation rates are 41 percent for white students, 29.7 for black students. SANDRA M. PHOENIX Program Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 404.592.4820 Skype:sandra.phoenix1 1438 West Peachtree Street NW Suite 200 Atlanta, GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (Lyrasis) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children.