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Black Males Rare on Nation's Campuses

Posted on: Monday, 14 November 2005, 15:00 CST

By Ervin Dyer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Nov. 14--Sitting down front in his business law class, Larry Wearing is a rare sight on campus.

Not just because he wears his Ray Charles sunglasses to class. Not just because he's 40 and twice the age of many of his classmates.

The first-year student at Community College of Allegheny County is a black male. On many campuses, including CCAC, black men are few and far between.

Even after a decade of small increases in the numbers of young black and Hispanic students who go to college, the number of black males who enroll remains minuscule. The rise in black enrollment is almost entirely due to women, who often double their numbers of their male counterparts on campus and in graduating. There has been a recent slight decline among young whites, but all groups continue to far outpace black males in percentage enrolling in college.

Across the country, of the 1.8 million black men between 18 and 24 -- the ages when most of their peers are in college -- only one-fourth were seeking higher education in 2004, according to the American Council on Education.

CCAC, which this fall has 753 black males on campus out of 18,000 students, is not alone in this regard. At the University of Pittsburgh's Oakland campus, there were 17,181 students in 2004, and only 660 were black men. At Carnegie Mellon University, where 5,494 undergraduates registered this fall, only 156 were black men.

Across the nation, more and more colleges are grappling with how to get black males back on campus and keep them there.

Two years ago, schools like Amherst and Swarthmore, and others, united to work on minority achievement issues, including the dearth of black males on campus.

Martha Rial photos CCAC students Shawn Seif, 31, above, and Joseph Henderson, 41, below, both speak of their college studies as a way to break out of a cycle of frustration and take control of their own destinies. Click here to learn more about their decisions to pursue college degrees.

At historically black Howard University, where women outnumber men by 2 to 1, there are forums on why black men are so underrepresented at college. The University of Georgia system, which has 17,000 black men among 250,000 students on 34 campuses, has researched the issue and launched programs to combat the low numbers.

Closer to home, CCAC last year created the African American Male Initiative, which is supported by a $200,000 grant from the Howard Heinz Endowments.

Administered by the college's Multicultural Affairs office, the initiative, aiming to keep young black men on track to graduation and beyond, finds it has to get at some dicey social issues, including black male identity, community economics, school achievement and the negative socialization that derails many black men.

Every month, Mr. Wearing joins other black men recruited through the initiative and they discuss issues as small as classroom etiquette and as large as the art of defining oneself.

There are 47 men in the initiative, which stretches across the four-campus CCAC system. One of the goals is to steer them toward nontraditional occupations: court stenography, paralegal work, nursing and other health career programs. Studies have shown that in this region there's a great demand for those professionals, while at the same time black male unemployment climbs toward 18 percent -- the highest rate in the region and more than twice the national rate of black unemployment.

"Preparing African American males and other minorities for these positions enhances their employment possibility and is good for the region," said Annie Pettway, director of the initiative. "The two go hand in hand."

At CCAC, the initiative received broad support. The recruiting was nontraditional: fliers were distributed to barbershops and bars and placed in churches. Advertisements went to black-oriented media.

Still, said Ms. Pettway, recruiting remained a challenge because the pipeline of black males who are ready for college is not as full as for other groups.

Far too many black males get burned by a complex stew of social forces that includes low expectations, lack of good role models and poverty. Experts say these factors impact disadvantaged students across ethnic and gender lines, but they hit black boys and men harder.

To some degree, said Dr. Larry Davis, dean of the School of Social Work and director of the Center of Race and Social Problems at the University of Pittsburgh, black women fall under the umbrella of the women's movement, but black males have no allies.

"For many of them, there is no such thing as brotherhood. White men aren't saying 'Come on in, brother.' "

Once higher education is no longer an option, their job choices narrow significantly, which can lead to crime, unemployment and imprisonment, said Dr. Davis.

Mr. Wearing, a small man with chiseled features, grew up in Wilkinsburg, raised by an aunt in a den of women. Two decades ago, there was no father figure, which he said affected his perception of what it meant "to be a man."

He was an average student who turned his attention to sports and women. The guidance counselor talked about college, but there was no real drive for him to go. His aunts and uncles never finished high school, so as far as college was concerned, "there was no one or any pattern to follow after," he said.

He enlisted in the Army, sold encyclopedias and then, after seeing a flier for the initiative in a Homewood market, came to CCAC.

Other campuses have tutoring and support for any struggling student, but in this area CCAC is one of the first to directly address the needs of black men.

The initiative provides emotional bonding, tutoring and tuition, book and transportation assistance. The participants are prepped, but not overprotected, said Ms. Pettway. They are in regular classes and are expected to produce like any other CCAC student.

For those hoping to catch up academically, there is an upside to pulling them into their own separate enclave, said Dr. Davis, who has written about black males and educational challenges.

The emotional support and social circles can influence study habits and foster a stronger self-identity. Dr. Davis is one of the few black deans at Pitt and, in 1977, he was one of only a few black men on campus when he graduated with a doctorate from the University of Michigan without the benefit of any black-male-only programs.

But he said he had "exceptional luck and exceptional mentors" and is quick to add that "if they would have had more of these programs, more of my cohorts would have made it through, too."

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, an author and political commentator, cautions that while needed, such programs can stigmatize or send the message that black men can't compete without some type of special help.

"If that's the message, the group can become marginalized," he said.

The peer support is good, he said, as long as the program is not "overprotecting" but equipping the men with the skills necessary to compete with all groups -- Latinos, Asians and women.

"At some point, we have to cut the umbilical cord and condition people to get ready for the rough and tumble of living in an integrated society."

Mr. Wearing, who wants to be a court reporter, earned all A's his first semester. His focus is on a more stable job that will give him more time with his son and a better income to live more comfortably.

It's a new direction and he's laying down different lessons for his son, Dajaun, 8, an honor student at Dilworth Elementary.

"I just want to show him he does not have to be influenced by those traveling an adverse path," said Mr. Wearing, "to show him that college is possible."

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Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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