Supporting Black Male Students on College Campuses
Supporting Black male students on campus means supporting students that institutions are the worst at retaining. For historically white institutions especially, it is imperative that leaders remain critical of the ways white supremacy culture negatively impacts Black male students’ experiences, persistence, and retention.
In my experience working with Black men on college campuses, supportive affinity spaces continue be an important part of establishing and cultivating a sense of belonging for them. While these meeting spaces can provide solace for them, these students are dealing with white supremacy and its functions. They still experience campus in many ways as an environment that is subtly and at times overtly hostile to them.
Black men do not often experience the freedom of emotion. In my work with students over the years, many have shared difficult experiences with navigating campus or the broader world as Black men, and their reality of not being fully able to express emotions like anger or discontentment at things that any person would be legitimately upset about under similar conditions out of fear for their physical, social, academic, and/or psychological safety.
They experience macro and microaggressions in the classroom and other social spaces on campus from their fellow peers as well as faculty.
They know the exhaustion from being in the presence of the white gaze. They know what it feels like to be “the only one” in many spaces, and are put in situations where they are expected to represent their entire racial group.
They carry the weight of being perceived as more dangerous or less intelligent. They work through impostor syndrome from stereotype threat; struggling with disparities in education, health, connections, wealth, and a variety of other areas that require additional energy that white students do not have to expend on the road to their diploma. All these things and more impact their persistence and retention.
If you hope to support Black male students, it is vital to take a non-assimilationist approach. Here’s what that means.
Acknowledge that Black male students navigate institutions that uplift whiteness as the standard of both normalcy and excellence. Include your institution as being a part of the problem. Because it is.
Make sure that in conversations and actions, you are consistently communicating to them that it is the institutions that need to change and not them; that they are not inferior, but rather it is the myth of white supremacy that must be interrogated and dismantled.
A non-assimilationist approach supports Black male students more holistically and creates space to further cultivate the strengths and resilience that they already possess when they arrive on campuses.
Like other people from marginalized groups, they are in many ways uniquely positioned to better understand systems and solutions that are necessary for where the world is right now, and where it needs to go.
Having opportunities to connect to other Black students is important. Connecting with staff and faculty who care about them is important. Cultivating their sense of physical, social, and psychological safety is important.
When Black male students receive those things, it creates opportunities to engage with them in deeper learning and exploration to better understand the systems of oppression that marginalize them, while also exploring their other multiple identities and their relationship to power and privilege.
These spaces better enable Black male students to laugh together, support one another through hardships, encourage one another to seek help when needed and to see and be seen by one another in ways that are not easy to come by outside of that intentional space.
Colleges and universities have a responsibility to remove barriers set in place by systems of oppression and create the conditions for our students to thrive and not merely survive. Student success and retention programs, affinity spaces, and divisions for equity and social justice cannot do it alone and require the partnership of all areas of the institution to transform it and eliminate the disparate outcomes in retention and graduation rates that we are up against.
That transformation must include an unshakeable belief that the safety and viability of higher education and the broader society it serves as a public good is only as secure as the safety and success of its most vulnerable community members. This includes Black male college students.
Race-conscious policies created the barriers and disparities that Black male students experience, and we must be conscious of the impact of racism when examining existing policies and creating solutions.
As many institutions are publically expressing their support for Black lives in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing pandemic of white supremacy here is a non-exhaustive list of ideas that may complement what others have already been proposing to improve persistence and retention.
Race-conscious financial support to ensure equitable distribution of the university’s resources that are allocated to support students who experiencing financial hardship.
While weathering the financial storm the pandemic is wreaking on the institution, prioritize protecting programs (like student success programs, social justice centers, social justice education and training, etc) that are sources of support for the entire institution but center the most vulnerable.
Wherever possible, encourage asynchronous teaching in the classroom, with no mandatory requirements that students appear on camera during synchronous sessions.
Encourage faculty to be very flexible with students with meeting deadlines and submitting assignments.
Continued education for faculty and staff on creating inclusive environments where students live learn and play.
Serious investment in recruiting new Black faculty and staff and improving the climate for current Black faculty and staff who are often supporting students while at the same time facing similar challenges in their environment.
If the hashtags Black in Higher Education and Student Affairs #BlackinHESA and Black in the Ivory #BlackintheIvory are any indications, there is still plenty of work to do in this area.
Black Faculty and staff who are thriving and not merely surviving are better able to support students in their journey to do so as well.
How do you think colleges and universities can better support Black male students?
From Aspiring Humanitarian, Relando Thompkins-Jones
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