Black Colleges Diversify Appeals

The nation’s historically black colleges and universities dangled scholarships, tradition and the lure of personal attention in front of thousands of California students Saturday.

Gathered at the Los Angeles Convention Center for the third annual Black College Expo, 48 schools, most east of the Mississippi, mined a mostly teenage crowd for next year’s freshmen.

The event blended traditional recruiting and information booths with less bookish fare, including a fashion show and a performance by rapper-crooner Nate Dogg.

“You have to use imagination in your recruiting,” said Fred M. Williams, an alumnus manning Louisiana’s Southern University booth.

In the past few years, as enrollment has dipped somewhat at many black colleges, they have stepped up their recruiting in Western states, California in particular, Williams said.

His alma mater is one of the better-known black colleges. It is especially noted for its annual Bayou Classic football game against Grambling State University, an event that features a dueling-bands halftime show.

Still, Williams, exhorting passersby to fill out information cards, said he never stops recruiting, even in fast-food restaurants.

“We graduate more African American engineering students than any other school in the country,” he said.

“We try to attract the best, but we want to give other students a chance at college too.”

That willingness to give borderline students an opportunity was expressed by many recruiters, who also touted a strong sense of community.

A recruiter for Savannah State University in Georgia, Tewana LeCounte-Young, said that at the college she attended, which wasn’t primarily black, “nobody cared whether I graduated or not.” She sees the difference at Savannah, which her two sisters attended.

“People stop me on campus all the time and ask how my sisters are doing,” she said. “If I go back to my old school, I doubt if anyone would even recognize me.”

Kristle Hill, a 16-year-old sophomore from Beverly Hills High, said she wants to go to Atlanta’s Spelman College for women.

“I think it would just be a different atmosphere, a way to get in touch with my roots,” she said. “A lot of people from my church have gone to black colleges and moved on to better things after graduating.”

Students often are surprised at the heavy workloads and the diversity of opinion they find on even a mostly black campus, said Excel A. Sharrief, a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta.

“You see a lot of culture shock,” he said. “Young people who might think the black community is monolithic are often surprised when they get to campus and run into black conservatives and people with all kinds of different views.”

Many black colleges have a high percentage of “legacy students” whose parents are alumni. Williams, of Southern University, said that 70% to 80% of its student body are legacy students.

“Of course,” he added, “We also have the Bayou Classic.”