(Lauren Dobkin, AOL)
What's special about the program at Medgar Evers is that it is run at a publicly-funded, co-ed institution and it targets mostly lower-income black males.
It's hard out there for young black males. Although black male enrollment in institutions of higher learning is increasing, their numbers aren't growing as quickly as that of black women, says Robert Bruce Slater, managing editor of the
Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. Of the college-aged blacks enrolled in colleges or universities across the country, 64 percent are women.
And when you compare the graduation rates from four-year colleges (those who enter and receive their degree from the same school), the gap is narrower but still significant, with 46 percent of women receiving degrees compared to 35 percent of men.
Concerned with those disappointing statistics, three years ago, Edison O. Jackson, president of
Medgar Evers College Brooklyn, part of City University of New York (CUNY) created a one-year, male-only program called The Men's Room to help black males succeed. The idea is to create a nurturing, affirming learning environment, "free from gender issues," for higher education's most endangered group. The program is also designed to impact the lives of the young men outside of the classroom by empowering them to become better decision makers.
Jackson's idea isn't novel. From elite institutions like
Britain's Eton College and the old pre-integration Harvard College to the Citadel, Morehouse College and a batch of all-male charter schools across the country, there has been a longstanding belief among some educators that single-sex environments are be better suited for instructing men and building their character. Even the opponents of such schools, who usually point to problems of sexism and social development, agree, for the most part, that those environments encourage academic achievement.
What's special about the program at Medgar Evers is that it is run at a publicly-funded, co-ed institution and it targets mostly lower-income black males. The Men's room program randomly selects a group of black male freshman and helps them succeed, says Jackson. "Our aim is to discover what can we learn and transmit (that information) to others working with black men."
Jackson who maintains that young black men have a unique way of looking at the world, says "as we are teaching them, we are learning from them, (learning about) the forces that are pulling them from getting an education.
Jackson contends that the behavior of young black men in the classroom is often misinterpreted. For example, some instructors may view a nonparticipating black male student as defiant although, he argues, that withdrawing from classroom interactions is a typical coping mechanism for young black males who generally tend to avoid the spotlight.
“They are protecting their psyche," he argues. "They have developed strategies for coping and self-disclosure is not one of them. You have to build a level of trust. You have to help the young men to see that in here you have to change and use those skills to your advantage in an academic setting.”
In addition to life skills, The Men's Room also provides a strong black male role model for the students to learn from, confer with and, hopefully, emulate.
"They haven't had too many significant male figures in their lives, says Dr. Jackson.
Click Here To Read Part II Of "For Men Only"
