Supporting Urban African American Males Persistence in College Christopher Scott
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Supporting Urban African
American Males Persistence in
College Christopher Scott
My Background
• Cleveland, OH
• First Generation College Student
• Admission Counselor (University of Toledo)
• Motivational Speaker for High School / College Students
Research Question
• How does social support aid in the persistence of urban African American
male students within colleges and universities?
Case Study
• Participant Background
• African American Male
• Freshman
• Cleveland, OH
• Urban Community
• Interviews
• Formal
• Informal
Four Areas of Interest
1. Social Influences from peers prior to college
2. Social support from family
3. Social support from peers in college
4. Social support from faculty in college
1. Peers Prior To College
• The Participant was asked to share his thoughts on six questions, we will
explore two responses that stood out.
1. Peers Prior To College
• What was the view on college between you and your peers in your
neighborhood?
“College in my neighborhood was not something really valued as much as it
should be so when I discussed with everybody about going to college everyone
basically congratulated me on it and supported me but they also on the other
hand felt like it would never be for them so they would never go because they
felt like they could never do it.”
1. Peers Prior To College
• What was their response when you told them you were planning to go to
college?
“I didn’t really get much academic support, I got a lot of your going to meet a
lot of girls and go to a lot of parties, stuff like that. They really encouraged the
turn up I would say. They really encouraged me to party and talk to as many
girls as I could. Things like that.”
2. Support From Family
• What was your parents views on college prior to you enrolling?
“They really encouraged me to go. Neither one of my parents were able to go
to college. They always wanted me to have more than they did so they really
encouraged the idea of going to college. They wanted me to gain a skill for my
future so they were really supportive about my decision to college.”
2. Support From Family
“I think it was the second week in college, I had to call my mom. I was heated, I was on the verge of tears because all of my stuff came up missing. It was just stuff after stuff. I let the first thing slide, but then more things came up missing. Then somebody took my I phone headphones. I was about to break down, I had to call my mom. I was like I don’t have my headphones; I can’t tune these people out in my dorm room. I can’t study! I don’t think I will ever forget that. I had to call my mom because somebody took my headphones and I’m a grown man. I had to call her, she told me to calm down and enjoy the experience and to not let everything get to me.”
3. Peers In College
• What was it like making friends in college?
“It was honestly, even though I felt like coming into college everybody would
be cool and open, coming from where I come from, being friendly and real
open is not something that’s accepted. So I kind of took that approach when I
first got to school. So I was distant from everybody. I was figuring it out, we
were all different dudes from different parts of the world. We were put in one
room so I was hesitant trying to come out right and be like hey I’m Darnell!
and be friendly with everybody. I didn’t know how they would respond to that.”
3. Peers In College
• If not friendly and open at home, what’s the alternative?
“I usually walk around you know with a mean mug or a frowned up face. I
don’t know what people really call it but I call it a blank face or blank stare. You
have to scope a lot and smiling laughing is usually a sign of weakness because
people will think you are soft and they can get over on you real quick or real
easy. So most people walk around with a frown on their face where I come
from. Or they look mean, real mean like they would do something to you.”
3. Peers In College
• Academically focused or socially focused college friends?
“Freshman year, I really hung out with a lot of my roommates basically. And I
would say they were more socially focused. We were all young so the main
focus getting here was the girls and going and being seen at the parties and I
think that was the most focus, I don’t think that was the only focus because a
lot of us did do work. When it came down to it we got the work done when it
needed to be done.”
Peers In College
• How did you all support each other academically?
“Academically a lot of us have the same classes, so we would stay on each other like hey you do the homework. or you know such and such is due, can I borrow your notes? Or if the homework was real hard, we would all get together and we will like to help each other in a study group and I thought that was real good because if you got one person that don’t know or you don’t know the answer and you got two or three other people in your class that’s your friends, y’all can put y’all heads together making it easier to come up with the answers. Socially we supported each other by sticking together. After a while college for us started to seem like a brotherhood. Because whenever someone saw us we were always together. We always stuck in our circle and held each other down. We had each other’s backs.”
4. Faculty In College
• In your words, what is a mentor?
“somebody, that gives great advice, someone that's there for you when you
need them and somebody that has been through a lot in their life that you can
learn from.”
4. Faculty In College
More about his mentor.
“I work with my mentor on campus. We are both from Cleveland so it was easy
to talk to him and go to him and explain a lot of the problems that I was
having internally and as far as meeting new people and opening up to
everybody, I feel like we come from the same place so he knew how hard it was
for me. So I had a lot of help there with my mentor.”
4. Faculty In College
• How do you think your freshman experience would have been different if you didn’t have a mentor?
“Oh I would have wanted to give up. I probably would have. I would have probably got to the point. I know a lot of people that would have broken down and dropped out. I actually know a lot of people that have broken down and dropped out because they didn’t have the support system or anybody to go talk to. In college your first year it can get really stressful. I feel like it will get really stressful to take control of everything early and not have somebody to talk to as far as friends and family that stress can really way down on you and cause some real psychological damage to the point where you want to leave school and forget all the plans that you have for the future.”
Significance
• Studying the social factors affecting urban African American student success,
helps us better align our campus resources to keep them on track for success
and ultimately graduating.
Questions?
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