THE SANKOFA INITIATIVE: The Persistence of African American Males in American Community Colleges

By:
Wayne Beckles, Lorenzo Esters, David Mosby and Michael Robinson

The African American Community College Trustees, an affiliate of the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT), commissioned the Morgan State University Community College Leadership Doctoral Program to launch a Black Male Initiative that was designed to examine the academic achievement disparities of African American males in the American Community college system. Preliminary results were to be presented at ACCT’s 2006 Community College Leadership Congress in October 2006.

Purpose

The purpose of this discussion paper is to: (1) launch a national conversation about the achievement and persistence patterns of African American males in community colleges; (2) examine interventions that promote the academic success of African American males attending community colleges; and (3) initiate a review of current programs and services at community colleges throughout the United States.

State of Urgency

The media, both print and visual, is laden with negative statistics, reports and characterizations of the condition of African American males. Over the last decade, for every one African American male enrolled in college, six are added to the prison and jail population (Kunjufu, 2001). Nearly one in three African American males between the ages of 20 to 29 is under some form of criminal justice supervision on any given day—either in prison or jail, or on probation or parole (Kunjufu, 2001; Mauer, 1999). Forty nine percent of prison inmates nationally are African American, compared to 13 percent of the overall population (Kunjufu, 2001; Mauer, 1999). One could argue that the American community college is the institution that is best positioned to implement policies and initiatives to address the dismal condition of the African American male. The American community college’s potential is greater than that of any other institution because its concern is with the people most in need of assistance (Cohen & Brawer, 2003).

While previous studies have focused on African Americans in higher education, fewer studies have focused specifically on the plight of the African American male and the factors that influence persistence of African American males attending American community colleges (Bush & Bush, 2005; Hagerdon, Maxwell, & Hampton, 2001/2002; Hampton, 2002; Holzman, 2006). Williamson and Creamer (1988) found that the factors influencing persistence in higher education differ for two-year college students and 4-year college students. These findings suggest that perhaps background characteristics (e.g., race and gender) exert a considerable influence on students’ persistence decisions. African American undergraduate males who made up 37 percent of all African American undergraduate students in 2000 constituted approximately 12 percent of all male students attending two-year institutions (Horn, Peter, & Rooney, 2002). Accordingly, approximately 52 percent of all African American undergraduate males attended two-year institutions.

A survey conducted by the U. S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), revealed that the numbers of African American males who actually persist through completion at American community colleges are far lower than the numbers of those admitted. The IPEDS study tracked the graduation and transfer rates of full-time, African American, non-Hispanic male students at public two-year institutions seeking a degree or certificate and completing the program within 150% of normal time, by state (see Appendix).

Previous Research

The literature reveals that African American male students have been the focus of recent research (Cuyjet, 1997; Harper, 2004; Howard-Hamilton, 1997; Hrabowski, Maton, and Grief, 1998; Hrabowski and Pearson, 1993; Moore, Flowers, Guion, Zhang, and Staten, 2004; Taylor and Howard-Hamilton, 1995). Studies on African American males have primarily centered around issues exploring: (1) best practices to predict retention of African American males in college (Ammons, 2006; Hagerdorn, Maxwell, and Hampton, 2001/2002; Hampton, 2002), and (2) factors that promote a climate of academic success for African American males in college (Bush and Bush, 2005; Cuyjet, 2006; Flowers, 2006; Johnson, 1993; Kincaid, 2003; Perry-Johnson, 2003; Reglin, 1994).