I’ve spent my entire career studying undergraduate and graduate education, and I’ve visited over 40 historically Black colleges and universities as part of my work as an expert witness for the U.S. government in major civil rights cases regarding race and gender in higher education.
But not until Marybeth Gasman and I recently completed a three-year study of student success at MSIs (including HBCUs, TCUs, HSIs and ANNAPISIs) did I begin to develop a deep appreciation for how much many of us in higher education can learn from MSIs about cultivating equal educational opportunity for all students.
I’ve learned that ensuring the success of all students needs to be anchored in a shared understanding among all stakeholders in our colleges and universities that it is long past time to abandon the “one-size-fits-all” view of students.
The majority of students in higher education are bringing a confluence of individual challenges — from uncertainty about college, to family and financial challenges, to demanding work schedules, to English as a second language — that need to be addressed on a one-on-one basis.
To meet the varied needs of individual students, MSIs are creating cultures in which everyone — administrators, faculty, staff and students — embraces interdependence and collaboration as both obligations and opportunities. In doing so, they are blurring traditional roles and responsibilities. In other words, everyone is expected to take personal responsibility for the persistence and the learning of students.
At Paul Quinn College, the motto “We Over Me” isn’t just a slogan; it finds expression in the everyday lives of everyone at the college. One student emphasized this point, telling us that when he was thinking of leaving Paul Quinn, the president of the college drove from Dallas to Houston to have dinner with him and his mom — and convinced him to stay the course.
