Stereotyping HBCU's

[AKADIVA12]

Originally Posted by ladygreek

I was talking about Janette Dates. Maybe she was the assistant dean and not interim at the time. But I do know at some point she became interim and is now the dean of the School of C.

My daughter started off in journalism, but the School added advertising her sophomore year, so that is what she majored in.

Okay, I didn't read thuroughly because I neglected to see interim. Dr. Merritt was/is a delta and was the dean when I was there. Dang I've aged myself even more. Oh well.

[ladygreek]

Originally Posted by AKADIVA12

Okay, I didn't read thuroughly because I neglected to see interim. Dr. Merritt was/is a delta and was the dean when I was there. Dang I've aged myself even more. Oh well.

No same time period. Like I said Dr. Dates was probably the assistant dean at the time. She is who helped us.

[AKA_Monet]

Originally Posted by IvySpice

About 20 of them, according to the article, plus another 12 or 15 small colleges. My original post was responding to a specific statement about the Ivy Leagues that was incorrect. The Ivy League school with the lowest black graduation rate is Cornell at 83%. This is better than the HBCU with the highest graduation rate. Even if you believe that Harvard is handing out degrees in "underwater basketweaving" to all comers, do you believe that about Caltech, MIT, Rice, and Notre Dame, all of which have higher black graduation rates than any HBCU?

Most Ivy Leagues are universities with secondary degrees. They are calculating these numbers from the graduate school education. Most grad schools only admit those students they plan to graduate, period... It does not look good if they flunk students out in grad school. No where in the report I read indicated they only have Undergraduate numbers. So the comparion to HBCU vs. Ivy Leage numbers is unfair, even if we are talking the HBCU that have graduate programs. There are now ~10 schools: Howard, Meharry, Morehouse Med, Atlanta U., FAMU, Bethune-Cookman and I think Virginia Union. There are a few others, but I don't remember off hand. Spelman, since I graduated there and donate all my Alumnae money to, does not have a graduate school...

My point is this. HBCUs are the best choice for many students for a long list of reasons, many of which satisfied alumni have already pointed out on this thread. But high graduation rates are not on the list. The majority of students at the HBCUs with the highest graduation rates (such as Spelman, Morehouse, Howard, Fisk, and Hampton could go to top-20 PWIs like Harvard if they wanted to, so it really doesn't matter to them that the black graduation rate at fourth-tier PWIs is pitiful. The students we're talking about are choosing between HBCUs and the Ivy League et al., and the Ivy Leagues are doing a very good job of graduating their black students. That doesn't mean it's wrong to choose an HBCU over an Ivy -- it just means that it's wrong to suggest that "piss poor" black graduation rates at the Ivies ought to be a factor in the decision.

But based on the total population that the Ivies have and graduation rates they claim in this report do not correlate with the numbers I have read or calculated. Yes, 8 out of 10 are graduating--but out a population of 100 where half drop out? That is an unfair correlation. This was a prospective study, after data was calculated and it was a cross-sectional. A snapshot is showing a pretty picture. But when you make the comparison to non-Af Am students, it is a poorer prognosis for self-ID'ed AfAm students.

The NCAA is required to collect and report the data according to guidelines set by the Department of Education. That's why the data can be considered both NCAA and DoE statistics.

http://www.psu.edu/ur/archives/inter.../gradrate.html (scroll to the bottom of the page)

Do you have any reason to doubt that the NCAA information is accurate? I trust that the folks at JBHE know what they're talking about.

These rates are almost 10 years old. How are they significant today? Then they were developed by a nonHBCU school. Yet, still it is used as a marketing tool against HBCU's even if it is subliminal. "We have better graduation rates if you attend here vs. Spelman..." "Blah Blah Blah..."

And people buy into this "excellent education" at a quasi Ivy League school to make a misconceived quota one must fulfill. Well, with marketing and targeting like this without full examination of the data by professionals--and yes, I am one of them, to query significant questions, you dayum right I am not trusting anything these folks say at first glance. Also, I have young people coming to my office constantly crying as to the isolation they feel while attending these schools. No, I don't do these kind of formal research projects, I do more biomedical ones, but I still educate students and am forced to do Black College Professor teaching on these same students that I know still exists in the classrooms at HBCU's...

So, when I recommend schools to high school folks, I ask them, do you want to stay home, or do you want to go away?

[Sugar08]

Originally Posted by ladygreek

I was talking about Janette Dates. Maybe she was the assistant dean and not interim at the time. But I do know at some point she became interim and is now the dean of the School of C.

My daughter started off in journalism, but the School added advertising her sophomore year, so that is what she majored in.

Wow, Dean Dates! I was a journalism major at Howard... although I have friends who were in advertising.

[Ceekit]

My undergraduate experience was spent at University of Maryland (Go Terps!!) eventhough it was not my first choice. I thought that I was going to be attending Bowie State University because they were going to give me money for playing basketball. Well, they somehow ran out of money and I didn't see paying to play for them when I could get free tuition at the school that my mom worked at. It didn't matter to me which school I went to, as long as they had my major. However I did attend Bowie for grad school. I did see big difference in the administration and the attitude from the instructors between the schools but I don't know if I was just stereotyping or if it was fact.

[Ceekit]

Originally Posted by AKA_Monet

Most Ivy Leagues are universities with secondary degrees. They are calculating these numbers from the graduate school education. Most grad schools only admit those students they plan to graduate, period... It does not look good if they flunk students out in grad school. No where in the report I read indicated they only have Undergraduate numbers. So the comparion to HBCU vs. Ivy Leage numbers is unfair, even if we are talking the HBCU that have graduate programs. There are now ~10 schools: Howard, Meharry, Morehouse Med, Atlanta U., FAMU, Bethune-Cookman and I think Virginia Union. There are a few others, but I don't remember off hand. Spelman, since I graduated there and donate all my Alumnae money to, does not have a graduate school...



But based on the total population that the Ivies have and graduation rates they claim in this report do not correlate with the numbers I have read or calculated. Yes, 8 out of 10 are graduating--but out a population of 100 where half drop out? That is an unfair correlation. This was a prospective study, after data was calculated and it was a cross-sectional. A snapshot is showing a pretty picture. But when you make the comparison to non-Af Am students, it is a poorer prognosis for self-ID'ed AfAm students.





These rates are almost 10 years old. How are they significant today? Then they were developed by a nonHBCU school. Yet, still it is used as a marketing tool against HBCU's even if it is subliminal. "We have better graduation rates if you attend here vs. Spelman..." "Blah Blah Blah..."

And people buy into this "excellent education" at a quasi Ivy League school to make a misconceived quota one must fulfill. Well, with marketing and targeting like this without full examination of the data by professionals--and yes, I am one of them, to query significant questions, you dayum right I am not trusting anything these folks say at first glance. Also, I have young people coming to my office constantly crying as to the isolation they feel while attending these schools. No, I don't do these kind of formal research projects, I do more biomedical ones, but I still educate students and am forced to do Black College Professor teaching on these same students that I know still exists in the classrooms at HBCU's...

So, when I recommend schools to high school folks, I ask them, do you want to stay home, or do you want to go away?

North Carolina A&T has a graduate school too.

[Ceekit]

I remember two things that bothered my while I was at Bowie. I have one professor tell me that when we take breaks, you should take your stuff with you because people will steal your stuff, and another professor told us that the bookstore prices were high because students were stealing books.

[ladygreek]

Originally Posted by Ceekit

I remember two things that bothered my while I was at Bowie. I have one professor tell me that when we take breaks, you should take your stuff with you because people will steal your stuff, and another professor told us that the bookstore prices were high because students were stealing books.

Those professors told you the truth. Why did it bother you? It was the same at my PWI.

[Ceekit]

Originally Posted by ladygreek

Those professors told you the truth. Why did it bother you? It was the same at my PWI.

I never had that experience at UMCP and I figured that they were making it up. The books were significantly marked up. And I never took my book with me when I went to the bathroom.

[Lyoness]

My mom sent me this. It's 2007 and don't forget to read the comment at the bottom. Same thing was going on at IU in 1999 when I almost went.

http://thepost.baker.ohiou.edu/artic...ews/20405.html

[IvySpice]

Most Ivy Leagues are universities with secondary degrees. They are calculating these numbers from the graduate school education.

No, they are not. These are undergraduate numbers, not aggregated across the graduate schools. The link explicitly states that it refers to completion of four-year college degrees:

http://www.jbhe.com/preview/winter07preview.html

Even if you believe that the JBHE is, for some mysterious reason, secretly including graduate school data for the Ivy Leagues, that would not explain why PWIs such as Amherst, Wellesley, Williams, Smith, Hamilton, and Swarthmore, all of which have no graduate programs, all have (much) higher black student graduation rates than the highest-peforming HBCU. Amherst is almost identical to Harvard on this measure.

But based on the total population that the Ivies have and graduation rates they claim in this report do not correlate with the numbers I have read or calculated.

OK, why don't you share the numbers you have read or calculated? What's your source?

Yes, 8 out of 10 are graduating--but out a population of 100 where half drop out? That is an unfair correlation.

What do you mean? This is the number of entering freshman who receive a bachelor's degree within 6 years. If you drop out, then you're counted as not graduating. How is that an "unfair correlation"?

But when you make the comparison to non-Af Am students, it is a poorer prognosis for self-ID'ed AfAm students.

JBHE addresses that issue in the article: it ranks PWIs not only by the black graduation rate, but by the differential between white and black graduation rates. Some PWIs, like Cornell, don't do as well on this measure, but 20 PWIs have a differential of 5 points or less. Mt Holyoke actually graduates its black students at a higher rate than its white students.

http://www.jbhe.com/features/50_blac...gradrates.html

These rates are almost 10 years old. How are they significant today?

No, the JBHE data is from 2005. I cited the PSU page solely to support my point that the NCAA and DOE data are one and the same.

you dayum right I am not trusting anything these folks say at first glance.

OK, then let's keep taking glances. Why is the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education "these folks" and therefore untrustworthy? What do you think their agenda is?

I have young people coming to my office constantly crying as to the isolation they feel while attending these schools.

That's a great reason for those students to attend HBCUs. There are many great reasons. But higher black graduation rates compared to PWIs is not one of them.

[Ten/Four]

Originally Posted by ladygreek

No same time period. Like I said Dr. Dates was probably the assistant dean at the time. She is who helped us.

They are both still there, and both are great.

Ladygreek, you are just like my mom. I didn't have any problems with moving in and registration, but with getting one of my grades posted after my first semester. I tried being an adult with the professor, but she took her sweet time posting my grade. This went on for a few weeks into the spring semester. I gave up and finally let my mom handle it. They gave my mom the round around to but she called had Swygert's office directly. That grade was posted within a few days. Come to find out there was a clitch in the computer system (it had just gone online). We left about it now, but I was mad as heck at the time.

Originally Posted by AKA_Monet

There are now ~10 schools: Howard, Meharry, Morehouse Med, Atlanta U., FAMU, Bethune-Cookman and I think Virginia Union.

That's old school.

[Wonderful1908]

PVAMU

I try to give my SWAC schools love but this is disgusting!

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by Lyoness

My mom sent me this. It's 2007 and don't forget to read the comment at the bottom. Same thing was going on at IU in 1999 when I almost went.

http://thepost.baker.ohiou.edu/artic...ews/20405.html

I hope these types of relatively rare events aren't why you really went to an HBCU.

[KAPital PHINUst]

Originally Posted by DSTCHAOS

I hope these types of relatively rare events aren't why you really went to an HBCU.

Co-sign.

One of the few times I agree with Chaos' posts.