The Evolving Challenges of Black College Students

“We continue to be plagued with issues of retention and dropout of minority students, especially our Black students. The issues look the same as they did years ago when campuses began to seriously consider integration. Yet, the students are not the same, and they come to campus with a multitude of needs that are similar to our past students, but also vastly different. Practitioners in higher education, student affairs, and undergraduate studies should find the chapters relevant to understanding today’s Black college student."―Lemuel W. Watson

The contributors make the case that the new generation of Black students differ in attitudes and backgrounds from earlier generations, and demonstrate the importance of understanding the diversity of Black identity.

Successive chapters address the nature and importance of Black spirituality for reducing isolation and race-related stress, and as a source of meaning making; students’ college selection and decision process and the expectations it fosters; first-generation Black women’s motivations for attending college; the social-psychological determinants of academic achievement, and how resiliency can be developed and nurtured; institutional climate and the role of cultural centers; as well as identity development; and mentoring. The discusses the impact of student-to-student interactions in intellectual development and leadership building; describes the successful strategies used by historically Black institutions with at-risk men; considers the role of parents in Black male students’ lives, and the applicability of the “millennial” label to the new cohort of African American students.

The book offers new insights and concrete recommendations for policies and practices to provide the social and academic support for African American students to persist and fully benefit from their collegiate experience.

Terrell L. Strayhorn is Associate Professor of Higher Education at The Ohio State University, where he also serves as Director of the Center for Higher Education Research and Policy, faculty affiliate in the Department of African American and Africana Studies, and senior research associate in the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity. He is the recipient of ASHE’s 2009 Early Career Award.

View his TED Talk "Inalienable Rights: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Belonging" from TEDxColumbus.

Melvin Cleveland Terrell is Vice President Emeritus at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. From 1988 to 2008, Dr. Melvin Cleveland Terrell served as Vice President for Student Affairs at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, Illinois, where he remains Professor of Counselor Education.

Lemuel W. Watson is Associate Professor of Higher Education, Clemson University.