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Graduation: it’s presumably the best, most anticipated, day of a college student’s life. As graduates anxiously wait to cross the stage, few black students will have the chance to step into the spotlight. Just like their peers, black students go through the process of selecting a school, moving on campus, taking classes and even playing sports. But over the span of four to six years, the majority of black college students stray from the college course and rarely get back on track. Whether it’s California or Iowa, the low number of black students that graduate is a national issue.

Know the Basics

In order to understand the issue, one must know the basics. For one, an 
enrollment rate of a college or university is the percentage of 18 − to 24-year-olds enrolled in undergraduate studies. 
The retention rate is the percentage of 
first-time, first-year undergraduate 
students who continue onto the next academic year at that same college or university. A graduation rate refers to the time in which a student enters and then completes a degree at a four-year 
institution. Throughout this piece, these vocabulary terms will be used frequently. 

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the enrollment rate of black students has increased from 2000 to 2016. Since then, eight % more black male students and four % more black females have started their college journeys. However, very few of these students make it to graduation.

NCES has reported that nationally 62.4 % of college students, regardless of race, finish their degree within six years. Cappex, a college search guide, reported that the national six-year graduation rate of public colleges and universities is 57.6 %. Meanwhile, the Chronicle of Higher Education states that the national six-year graduation rate of private institutions is 65.4 %. But the national six-year graduation rate for black student is 35.7 %. 

At public institutions, NCES reports that the black graduation rate is 45.9 %. This is in comparison to their Hispanic peers, who have a graduation rate of 55 %; White peers, who graduate at 67.2 %; and Asian peers, who graduate at 71.7 %. For private institutions, the Chronicle of Higher Education states, 25.4 % of black students graduate with six years. Yet, the problem is far worse for black men than black women. At public colleges and universities, the black female graduate rate is nine % higher than that of although black males. In total, black males have the lowest completion rate (40 %) compared to men and women of other races. 25.4 % of black males and 51.3 % of black females graduate from a private institution. 

Iowa is ranked 22nd for top private institution grad rates. Grinnell College, Luther College, Mount Mercy University and Drake University are the top institutions in the state. They are also more selective with their admissions than most. Grand View is near the middle of the pack. NCES reported that more than half of all students that attend GV graduate within six years. As for black students, only 20 % graduate in those six years. 

Pamela Christoffers, associate vice president for institutional effectiveness at GV, said that the university leaders are greatly concerned by this number and feel the number is way too low. 

“We (the university) feel like we fail at our mission when we don’t graduate a student or they leave us for whatever reason,” Christoffers said. 

Despite the low black grad rate, over the past several years, GV’s black graduation rate has steadily been going up. According to Grand View’s statistics, the fall of 2009 entering class had a six-year graduation rate of 22.2 % versus the fall of 2013 entering class graduation rate of 30.8 %. 

“It (the black graduation rate) is not where we would like it to be,” Christoffers said. “But, there does seem to be a somewhat positive trend that we are doing a little bit better.” 

According to a Thoughtco. article by Jackie Burrell, a former education and parenting reporter, financial disadvantages, lack of a support system, campus involvement (or lack thereof), poor self-motivation and, athletics are just  some of the reasons students drop or transfer out of a school. Similarly, Linda Creighton, an assistant professor at Radford University with a doctorate in educational leadership, wrote in an academic article that universities’ scared resources, weakened ability to meet educational objectives, and a university’s inability to meet a student’s educational, social and emotional needs leads to low graduation rates. “Students who are committed to their institutions are more likely to persist and graduate,”she wrote. In the spirit of improvement, GV is working on multiple initiatives to help with this crisis. 

One main initiative the institution has been working on is expanding capacity for data analysis. GV has greatly invested into data analytics that can reveal several key patterns. For instance, understanding what kinds of experiences students are having during their time here. This step is essential in order for GV to move forward and better retain and graduate all of their students. Analyzing data might seem easy, GV staff has been working hard to access and use data that has not been readily available before. 

“It has been a huge, over a yearlong, undertaking to get these data bases connected,” Christoffers said. 

Christoffers has been working with other staff to link the data in all of the different systems used at the institution so that staff can better serve a variety of populations on campus. 

“We are trying to look at calculating persistence, but more importantly linking,” said Patricia Williams, vice provost for graduate and professional studies. “One of the tools we have is Navigate. One of the things it does is helps us figure out what we call critical marker courses for different majors. And that’s something we are working to use more in advising.” 

A critical marker course is a class that the university has determined a student needs to pass in order to successfully complete their major. 

This system will be able to detect the necessary grade outcome a student needs in a certain class in order to continue on. Therefore, students will know before they enroll in a class how the course could affect their college journey. The more successful students are in their classes, the more likely they are to continue on and eventually reach graduation. Essentially, this data could help the university increase enrollment, retention and graduation rates – especially amongst black students, which is the population that struggles the most.  

Another initiative GV has implemented is the diversity advisory team. This team is led by Robert Barron, special assistant to the president for government and community relations, with the sole purpose to fix campus climate issues. 

(To learn more about GV’s campus climate initiatives, check out Nerma Turan’s story on page {7 and 8 }.)

Less than a year ago, President Kent Henning formed the “design team,” which later turned into the diversity advisory team. 

“He (President Kent Henning) recognizes that we, as an institution, are not where we need to be with students of diverse backgrounds,” Barron said.  

This team meets regularly on Fridays at 3 p.m. in the Student Center. Their current mission is to create a diversity statement for GV.

“You go to most college websites ,and you can find a diversity statement, which basically says how does university ‘x’ define diversity on that campus ,and what does that mean to how they operate themselves,” Barron said. 

Barron said that GV has never had a diversity statement implemented before now. He invites and encourages everyone to come to the diversity advisory team meetings, which are open to all campus. Although the selected team members run a majority of the meeting, there is time for open forum. 

Another idea that the diversity advisory team is working on is creating a survey to measure the climate on campus. 

According to Barron, this survey will allow staff to ask questions such as “how do African-American students perceive the support that they get on this campus” or “how relevant do they feel what they are learning in class is.” 

This survey should help staff better understand issues that students face at GV. But in order for them to better understand, students must participate and express their concerns when the survey is released. 

“All of this (change) is from the perspective that we (the institution) know that we can do better,” Barron said. “Even if the numbers were twice as large as they are right now, we would still feel like we could do better. That’s the nature of life and the nature of working at an institution like this. We have to focus on continual improvement.” 

In addition to those new implementations, the institution is working on new programs that will work on improving black graduation rates and making sure black students feel included. 

“Gear Up is a seven-year program that is funded by the federal government, and it takes (minority and low-income) students from middle school all the way through their first year of college,” Williams said. “The goal is to start programing to gear them towards college-bound work course.”

Recently, Grand View received funding to participate in the “Gear Up” program. With all of Des Moines being a “Gear Up” district, roughly 60 students will be invited to participate at GV. 

Gear Up Iowa has a mission is to “foster a statewide ‘college going’ culture among low-income, minority and first-generation students and increase knowledge and support as students and families plan, prepare and pay for postsecondary education beyond high school.” 

Williams said that some of these young students will have the opportunity to come to GV with paid tuition, room and board and books they will attend classes that will count as college credit in addition to receiving tutoring, mentoring and other services that will help these students better connect with Des Moines and Grand View. 

Basically, this program is designed to help increase a minority student’s likelihood of graduation early on in their educational journey through the support given. According to the Des Moines Public Schools website, there were over 6,800 black students enrolled during the 2018-2019 school year. 

“It’s really about building community and learning how to support each other,” Christoffers said.  

The mentoring program will go all throughout next fall for “Gear Up” students who chose to attend, and these students will receive a peer mentor. 

As for GV’s staff, Director of Multicultural Outreach Alex Piedras is always working on new programing for minority students at Grand View. Piedras said that he is working on creating an umbrella-like system for all diverse clubs and organizations so that they may collaborate more and work together on supporting all minority students. This system will require all diversity clubs –– PRIDE, BSU, Voz Latinx, Diversity Alliance, etc. –– to meet with Piedras; not to mention, Piedras will personally support these groups by attending meetings and events as a way to better connect with minority students and understand what they need in order to thrive. 

On the faculty side, Kevin Gannon, history professor and the director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, has been paving the way by educating teachers on how to make their classrooms more inclusive. 

“My take on it is that, whether we are talking about Grand View’s campus or nationwide, the campuses are not doing enough to support African-American students in particular, but minoritized students in general,” Gannon said. 

The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning is faculty development. The main focus of the department is to teach Grand View’s faculty and staff. 

“We support teaching and learning; we run a range of programming and support either tailored to individual instructor’s needs or larger structural issues. For example, inclusive teaching, racial gaps and graduation rates,” Gannon said. 

Gannon explained it this way: Grand View already has a low number of black students, and there are campus climates that make students feel unwelcome, which leads to students transferring or dropping out of school period. Gannon said that we have to figure out how to make students belong, and as an institution, we need to make substantial changes –– which people are sometimes afraid to talk about –– such as the way we teach, the structure of the curriculum or address the lack of diversity on campus. 

CETL helps teachers work on how to lead an effective discussion that makes sure all students feel welcome to participate. 

“In the CETL, we do a lot of work on what is called inclusive pedagogy. And so, when we talk about inclusive pedagogy that means not just what we would call culturally competent teaching, but it means inclusion in all its sorts.” 

Gannon said that the lack of a diverse campus is a problem all over the country. This is something that Grand View, in particular, is working on. During the hiring process, GV is trying to diversify the candidates that are selected to continue on in the hiring process. This is an improvement that students do not always get the opportunity to see. 

“We have to diversify our faculty and staff,” Gannon said. “Which is easy for me as a white male to say, but students need to see people who look like them in positions of authority.”

In fact, Dr. A’ndrea Wilson is proof that Grand View is trying to diversify its campus culture. 

Over a year ago, Wilson, professor and Braida-endowed chair of creative writing, started at Grand View. Since being hired, Wilson has wasted no time in trying to make a difference by helping black students at GV. 

“Any ideas that I have that I bring to the administration about ways to serve black students have been received well,” Wilson said. “I haven’t really felt like there’s been a lot of barriers in creating new programs and opportunities to connect with black students.”

Wilson first took on the role as an advisor of the Black Student Union. In this role, Wilson has helped many black students get involved with BSU so that these students know they are cared about, have resources and to hold students accountable in their educational and social journey. 

From there, Wilson, with the help of a previous staff member, created Homemade Love. Homemade Love is a monthly event where black students can go to feel like they have a voice and express their concerns without judgment or punishment. 

Wilson even decided to take on advising to help black students with their academics. 

“By second semester last year, there were a lot of football players on academic probation,” Wilson said. “They were trying to juggle football with their academics.” 

Wilson explained that many of the football players were just not feeling connected on top of their academic struggle. So, Wilson took a few students under her wings. She noticed athletes that she unofficially mentored soon started to thrive. From there, Wilson went through the process of becoming an official advisor for black athletes –– with a focus of trying to 

increase the black male graduation rate at GV. She even plans on bringing in successful black guest speakers to help motivate black-student athletes. 

For other black students, Wilson has created the annual black leadership panel and roundtable to provide them with networking and mentoring opportunities. This event allows black students to talk with successful black professionals in the Des Moines area.

Although Wilson does enjoy helping black students at GV succeed off the clock, her official job title is a professor. In Wilson’s classroom, she shows students, particularly black students, that it is OK to be yourself even as a teacher. 

“One thing for me that is very important is for me to really be comfortable in my own skin,” Wilson said. “I think that when students see me embracing my blackness — whether it’s the way I wear my hair to the clothing I wear to how I talk to how I present myself –– it gives them a sense that it’s OK to be them.” 

Furthermore, Wilson encourages her students to be their authentic selves. This sometimes may require her to give her black students more attention. An example Wilson gave was when she has received assignments with slang and African- American vernacular. She said she approaches the situation in a way where she is able to address the issue without devaluing the student’s work but rather helps their work meet collegiate standards. 

Wilson wants black students to know that it is OK, even encouraged, to talk with their professors. 

“In African-American culture, most times students have not been taught to talk to teachers,” Wilson said. “They have been taught to see administrators or people in positions of authority as a scary thing and to keep their heads down.” 

It was explained that this causes black students to sway away from asking for help. To circumvent that, Wilson approaches her students first and lets them know that her job is to help them succeed at GV. Without hesitation, Wilson shares opportunities with her black students that do just that. 

“I try to make up for the fact that I may be the only person, they work with, their whole college career that looks like them,” Wilson said. 

For all the black students at Grand View, Wilson wants to remind you that life is a marathon, not a sprint. Not everything happens according to plan, but success and good fortune will come. 

“Just pace yourself,” Wilson said. “Don’t lose hope or faith too quickly if everything doesn’t come together right away, and keep working hard. Eventually, you will get there.” 

Although the university is heavily focused on combating this issue, students are doing their best to help as well. Nearly two years ago, alum Nick Clayborne started Grand View’s Black Student Union. Since then, the organization has grown in size and potential. Last year GV’s BSU hosted biweekly meetings to provide a safe space for black students to share issues they faced on campus and hosted a variety of educational and social events to help black students feel more connected. At last year’s Honors Convocation, BSU was awarded outstanding Grand View Club/Organization. 

This year BSU wants to do more by making sure black students stay and graduate from Grand View.

“We really want to help bring a sense of belonging and community to campus,” said Alyssa Parker, the BSU co-president. “We want to give every black student a place, a space to feel comfortable especially at a predominately white institution where black students easily feel voiceless or like no one is paying attention to them.” 

Parker says that BSU plans to do this by holding black students accountable.

“This year, we really want to put an emphasis on how important it is to study and get good grades,” Parker said. “We want to do study tables and bring in tutors to help, but also we want to do study breaks and be able to support our black students throughout the year.” 

Parker says the goal of these events is to provide support to black students and to make sure they are not getting burnt out. These events will allow black students to be around “people who look just like them, who are going through similar struggles.” 

Parker wants to reiterate that BSU is there for black students, can provide resources and has multiple activities and events planned for this year, including an event that will showcase black graduates.

“You are here, and there are so many other black adults that don’t even make it here (at a college or university),” Parker said. “Once you get here, that is the hardest part. Now you just have to keep on your course. There are so many people, especially the BSU e-board, who care about you and making sure you graduate. You are never alone, and remember the bigger goal.”