Morehouse College Research Articles

Black male success in STEM: A case study of Morehouse College.

Black male success in STEM: A case study of Morehouse College.

Reminiscing: Valerie Cassel Oliver and Richard J. Powell in Conversation

ReminiscingValerie Cassel Oliver and Richard J. Powell in Conversation Valerie Cassel Oliver (bio) and Richard J. Powell (bio) OLIVER: I am truly excited to recollect about your time in Washington, DC, and at Howard University. Both are important sites in the establishment of so much, but especially contextualizing and preserving the history of visual arts by African American and African Diasporic artists. I have prepared a few questions, but, really, I want you to reminisce—think back on your time in Washington, DC, and at Howard. How did you get there? Who was there? What were the dynamics of the community, the arts community, especially. I arrived in the late-1980s, so to hear you speak about what happened in the 1970s is exciting. POWELL: It’s my pleasure. OLIVER: So . . . in the beginning you were at Morehouse College, and you would later leave Atlanta for Washington. What brought you to Washington, DC? [End Page 153] POWELL: Well, it actually goes back to a group of guys in my class at Morehouse College. I believe it was 1974, and my junior year. We decided to go to Howard University to check out the school for possible graduate study. And why did we think about Howard? I guess we were all interested in different things. My roommate was an English major, and I was an art major. There were some in our group who were interested in other aspects of studying at Howard, and one fellow had a car, so we just drove there to check it out in advance. And I’ll never forget going to the Art Department and introducing myself to Jeff Donaldson on that trip. Also, walking around the department a little bit and just getting a flavor for the things that were happening in the studio. It was a good trip, and I came back to Atlanta determined that’s where I wanted to do graduate work. It’s kind of strange when I think back on it. I believe that was the only MFA program I applied to, and I got in. OLIVER: That’s pretty amazing. You mentioned Jeff Donaldson being there. I believe, at that point, he had all but completed his dissertation at Northwestern University. At any rate, it was amazing to come into a program where you had a founding member of AfriCOBRA serving as chair. He had just stepped down when I arrived in the late-1980s. Floyd Coleman took over as chair of the art department, but Donaldson was then dean of the school. He brought in others in the group—people like Frank Smith and Wadsworth Jarrell and later James Phillips. Donaldson was instrumental. His being there, not only as an artist but also as a scholar, was key. It set the tone and provided an important context for understanding the artistic output of black artists. So, I think it’s very interesting that you found yourself at Howard at that particular time. But Donaldson was the new generation. Who else was there and what expectations were set upon you as a young artist coming into the field? It must have been a very heavy time to be there. POWELL: Yes, I should also say that the other reason I was directed to Howard was that I was about to go to Nigeria the following summer, and Jeff was the orchestrator of the North American contingent for FESTAC (the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture), which was soon taking place in Nigeria. Jeff had a reputation for being a leader in terms of gathering people under the rubric of black American art. FESTAC actually didn’t happen until 1977, but I was about go to Nigeria (in 1974) and had gotten a sense of this major, international, black diasporic thing that was about to happen OLIVER: Was this the inaugural event or had it been going on for a while? POWELL: It didn’t launch until 1977. OLIVER: So this was the inaugural? POWELL: It took place in 1977, although it was supposed to happen in 1975, but they had to wait because they needed to raise more money or something. The irony...

Teaching Writing as Community Activism: Reimagining Black Masculinity, Ending Sexual Violence

This article looks at the way in which we have infused community-based learning about gender and sexuality into freshman composition classes at Morehouse College. Morehouse is unique—it is the only college on the planet devoted to the higher education of African American men. Masculinity politics are often complicated at this single-gendered institution, where patriarchy still governs the culture and curriculum. More recently, students who are resisting or questioning traditional gender constructs have been more vocal, forcing the community to confront how and how often we engage with these issues. First-year composition courses are ideal places to first integrate the study of gender and sexuality because all first-year students are required to take this English sequence. This article—using models from bell hooks, Cynthia Neale Spence, and others involved in service learning and gender studies—focuses on how to promote community engagement, innovative pedagogical approaches, and, most importantly, a critical gender/sexuality conversation. The result of more conversation around gender and violence is that our male students realize that they share multiple memberships in different yet interrelated communities.

Was a college liable for an independent contractor's alleged negligence?

Morehouse College hired Atlanta Audio Visual in 2011 to provide a concert stage for homecoming activities.

Preparation of Underrepresented Males for Scientific Careers: A Study of the Dr. John H. Hopps Jr. Defense Research Scholars Program at Morehouse College.

Equal representation within higher education science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and the STEM workforce in the United States across demographically diverse populations is a long-standing challenge. This study uses two-to-one nearest-neighbor matched-comparison group design to examine academic achievement, pursuit of graduate science degree, and classification of graduate institution attended by students participating in the Hopps Scholars Program (Hopps) at Morehouse College. Hopps is a highly structured enrichment program aimed at increasing participation of black males in STEM fields. Morehouse institutional records, Hopps Program records, and National Student Clearinghouse data were used to examine differences between Hopps and non-Hopps STEM graduates of Morehouse. Two-way sample t tests and chi-square tests revealed significant differences in academic achievement, likelihood of STEM degree pursuit, and the classification of graduate institutions attended by Hopps versus non-Hopps students. Hopps Scholars were significantly more likely than non-Hopps STEM graduates both to pursue STEM doctoral degrees and to attend doctoral-granting institutions with higher research activity. The Hopps Program's approach to training black male students for scientific careers is a model of success for other programs committed to increasing the number of black males pursuing advanced degrees in STEM.

The Morehouse College Scholar-Activist Pedagogy and Boston Personalism

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Morehouse College Scholar-Activist Pedagogy and Boston Personalism Rufus Burrow, Jr., Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Theology of Resistance. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2014. Pp. 292. Paper $39.95. Echol Nix, Jr., ed., In the Beginning: The Martin Luther King, Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2015. Pp. 224. Cloth $35.00.Larry O. RiversLarry O. Rivers Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of African American History Volume 101, Number 4Fall 2016African Americans and Business: Race, Capitalism, and Power A journal of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.5323/jafriamerhist.101.4.0535 Views: 64Total views on this site Copyright 2016 The Association for the Study of African American Life and HistoryPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Pedagogical Personalism at Morehouse College

This essay describes a visionary philosophy of education at Morehouse College. The educational process at Morehouse, construed here as a form of pedagogical personalism, is personified in three luminaries of Morehouse College: Benjamin Elijah Mays, Howard Washington Thurman, and Martin Luther King. The educational process at Morehouse should be interpreted as an ambivalent response to segregation and discrimination in Jim Crow America. Like all black institutions in the South, Morehouse was subject to racist constraints; Morehouse was created and existed in large part due to just such constraints. I attempt to more accurately describe in order to more sensitively appreciate not only how historically black colleges and universities helped to shape the spiritual or intellectual blueprint of the civil rights movement but also how they served—and continue to serve—as ongoing experiments in democratic education. By way of conclusion, I suggest that the pedagogical personalism espoused and practiced at Morehouse College during what has been called her golden age, i.e., 1940–1967, constitutes a significant contribution to the history of higher education in America.

Digitizing the Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection

Digitizing the Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection

And Still We Rise: How a Black College Survives the Economic Recession

Since their inception, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have uniquely provided the space for African Americans to explore their racial identity; equipping students with the tools to function in a racist society (Allen et al., 2007; Anderson, 1988; Fleming, 1984; Gasman & Tudico, 2008; Minor, 2004; Nichols, 2004). Given the storm of deficit media surrounding these institutions (Gasman, 2009; Nealy, 2009; Riley, 2011), it is important to discuss the continued significant role Black colleges play in the 21st century. In addition to providing a quality education, HBCUs have historically been considered safe havens for the holistic development of students from social, economic, and political standpoints (Allen et al., 2007).Today there are approximately 103 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), with the majority being private and the rest operating as public and two-year institutions (Avery, 2009; Brown, 2013; Newkirk, 2012). Additionally, while currently only 14% of Black college students attend HBCUs, 70% of all Black doctors and dentists, 50% of all Black engineers and public school teachers, and 35% of all Black attorneys received their bachelor's degrees at an HBCU (Avery, 2009, p. 328). Despite these notable statistics, leaders associated with HBCUs have felt insecure about their future since the 1950s for a variety of issues; namely low enrollments, low endowments, loss of accreditation, and severe decreases in fiscal resources (p. 328). While a plethora of studies (Allen & Jewell, 2002; Anderson, 1988; Betsey, 2008; Drewry & Doermann, 2001; Fields, 2001; Gary, 2008; Gasman & Anderson-Thompkins, 2003; Gasman & Sedgwick, 2005; Gasman & Tudico, 2008; Harper, Patton, & Wooden, 2009; Jenkins, 1991; Jewell, 2002; Kim & Conrad, 2006; Minor, 2004; Minor, 2008; Patton, 2011 ; Roebuck & Murty, 1993; Wennersten, 1991) have been conducted regarding historically Black colleges and universities and their historical evolution, students' experiences, and academic culture, there is not enough research that addresses the ways in which the difficult financial and accreditation issues are effectively handled by these institutions. The purpose of this study is to address that gap of information by illuminating the ways in which Southern College (pseudonym), a private liberal arts HBCU, successfully addressed financial and accreditation difficulties during the economic recession.SITE SELECTIONDue to the unique standing of Southern College, an institution that almost closed its doors in 2004 due to dire financial difficulties, it is purposefully selected as an unusual case that will illuminate the strategies, processes, and leadership tactics attributable to the institution's current standing as a distinguished, financially stable HBCU. Southern College was specifically selected for this case study because it met the following criteria:* the institution must be a historically Black college or university,* the institution recently (within five years) suffered an extreme financial burden (i.e., budget cuts, declining enrollment),* the institution maintained the same presidential leadership throughout the financial crisis, and* the institution is referenced in the literature as one that is effectively handling the aforementioned financial burdens (Gasman, 2009; Masterson, 2010).While Southern College is not unusual in that it has experienced severe financial burdens within the last five years, it is unique in the way the leadership associated with the institution chose to tackle this problem, which resulted in lower student enrollments and higher quality of education and resources. Other HBCUs, namely Spelman College, Howard University, and Morehouse College, have also taken steps to stay abreast of the financial issues plaguing their institutions, but those steps have centered on increases in enrollment and budget cuts (Gasman, 2009). …

The Changing of a Macro System: Finding a Social Role for African American Elderly Males

President Obama on Sunday May 19, 2013 summoned the graduates of historically black Morehouse College to “transform the way we think about manhood,” urging the young men to avoid the temptation to make excuses and to take responsibility for their families and their communities. Delivering a commencement address at the all-male private liberal arts college in Atlanta, Obama spoke in deeply personal terms about the “special obligation” he feels as a black man to help those left behind. “There but for the grace of God, I might be in their shoes,” Obama said. “I might have been in prison. I might have been unemployed. I might not have been able to support a family and that motivates me.

Training racial and ethnic minority students for careers in public health sciences.

A workforce that resembles the society it serves is likely to be more effective in improving health equity for racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. Racial and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in the U.S. public health professions. Project Imhotep is operated by Morehouse College with funding and technical assistance from CDC. Imhotep trains racial and ethnic minority students for entry into graduate and professional training programs for careers in the public health sciences. The curriculum focuses on biostatistics, epidemiology, and occupational safety and health with practical training in statistical data analysis, scientific writing, and oral presentation skills. To describe the Imhotep program and highlight some of its outcomes. Data were collected every year by self-administered questionnaire or follow-up telephone and e-mail interviews of students who participated in Imhotep during 1982-2010 and were followed through December 2013. Findings demonstrated that 100% of the 481 trained students earned bachelor's degrees; 73.2% earned graduate degrees (53% earned master's degrees, 11.1% earned medical degrees, and 7.3% earned other doctoral degrees); and 60% entered public health careers. The Imhotep program has improved the representation of racial and ethnic minorities among public health professionals in the U.S. A diverse workforce involving Imhotep graduates could augment the pool of pubic health professionals who make strategic and tactical decisions around program design and resource allocation that impact health in the most affected communities.

Delta Fragments: The Recollections of a Sharecropper's Son John O.Hodges. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2013.

Delta Fragments: Recollections of a Sharecropper's Son John O. Hodges. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2013.By today's standards, John Hodges grew up in what can only be called impoverished conditions: a three-room shotgun shack without running water, located on a Mississippi Congressman's plantation. He ended up a professor of religious studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In this memoir of sorts, Hodges recounts his formative years (the late 1950s and early 1960s) in the Mississippi Delta up until he moved to attend Morehouse College. Delta Fragments provides short recollections and reflections on a variety of topics that primarily revolve around issues of race. book is divided into two parts. first part comprises about one-third of the work and provides background on the region but focuses primarily on Hodges's family and his childhood. second part comprises the remaining two-thirds and delves into many of the issues raised and suggested by the first third, primarily religion, segregation, the civil rights movement, and the everyday struggles of the mostly poor African American population in the Delta. By Hodges's own admission, many of the chapters may come across fragmentary, incomplete and undeveloped, but he asks readers to view them as an opportunity to provide one's own perspective and to draw his or her own conclusions (xvii). To that end, Hodges often provides thoughtful questions, such in The Black Preacher when he asks How could he allow civil rights workers to speak about voter registration matters to church members who depended on whites for their jobs? (129). Many of the topics he broaches and the questions he asks could be used in an undergraduate classroom setting to help stimulate provocative discussions.The short chapters (they average about six pages) address a broad range of subjects. first third is devoted to chapters about his mother, stepfather, sister, parts of his extended family, the Whittington plantation, childhood friends, and his schooling among others. second part of the book features two main clusters addressing the African American church and the civil rights movement, in which Hodges participated a young man. He compares his book to autobiographies by David Cohn and William Alexander Percy and explains that it provides an updated view of the same region from the perspective of an African American. Hodges also acknowledges his book's similarities to Clifton Taulbert's and Endesha Holland's memoirs. …

Preserving respectability or blatant disrespect? A critical discourse analysis of the Morehouse Appropriate Attire Policy and implications for intersectional approaches to examining campus policies

In this paper, I conduct a critical discourse analysis of the Morehouse College Appropriate Attire Policy and discuss how issues of race, gender, and sexuality converge to reveal both overt and hidden meanings embedded in the policy. I also consider how power is used towards “other” black college men who neither fit neatly into prescribed gender norms, nor foster representations of “good” black men. I situate this critical policy analysis in the context of two ideas: bipolar masculinity and the politics of respectability, and offer implications for the use of intersectional frames in scholarship and research on men and institutional policies.

Masculinity, Religion, and Modernism: A Consideration of Benjamin Elijah Mays and Richard Wright

Abstract This article is a comparative consideration of Morehouse College president and public theologian Benjamin Elijah Mays (1894-1984) and novelist Richard Wright (1908-60). Their respective views on modernism were developed through a gendered lens of black Southern masculinity and religion that each experienced during his formative childhood. Mays and Wright responded differently to theism and Christianity. They also responded differently to the mothering women in their lives--one with affection, the other with disaffection. Both Mays and Wright viewed modernism as a means of navigating the political hegemony embodied by white males. Yet, they each reproduced the modernist heterosexism, unwittingly supporting the subordination of the women who mothered them.

The Magnificent Mays: A Biography of Benjamin Elijah Mays

John Herbert Roper Sr.'s book is a fitting tribute to Benjamin Mays (1894–1984) and a thorough treatment of the life that Mays brought to us in his autobiography, Born to Rebel (1971). Mays lived a life emblematic of and deeply consequential to a century-long struggle for African American justice and equality. The son of former slaves, Mays witnessed the 1898 Phoenix race riot in Greenwood County, South Carolina, and came of age in the Palmetto state as the veil of Jim Crow descended across the South. Schooled in the values of hard work, education, and Christianity, Mays attended South Carolina State College, graduated from Bates College, and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Like other striving young African American men of his generation, he worked for a time as a Pullman car porter, even seeking to organize his co-workers before A. Philip Randolph successfully organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. For a time Mays dedicated himself to the work of the Tampa, Florida, Urban League. In the mid-1930s, Mays led the revival of Howard University's School of Religion. He did so as a group of black intellectuals—who W. E. B. Du Bois dubbed the Young Turks—sought to refashion the black struggle for civil rights as a struggle for economic justice, and Charles Hamilton Houston turned the university's law school into a laboratory for civil rights activism. To deepen his understanding of nonviolence as an approach to achieving social justice, Mays visited Mohandas Gandhi in India. In 1941 he began a lengthy tenure as president of Morehouse College, where he mentored a generation of black leaders, most notably Martin Luther King Jr. Although Mays would be viewed by some activists in the 1960s as out of touch with the black power trajectory of the movement, Mays's commitment to black freedom extended deep into the trenches of school integration efforts as chairman of the Atlanta school board in the 1970s.

Health Care Reform 2010: A Landmark Achievement for the Future

Health Care Reform 2010:A Landmark Achievement for the Future Rahn K. Bailey, MD Introduction Good morning, President Robert M. Franklin of Morehouse College, Board of Trustees, Administrators, faculty, staff, alumni, students, and very importantly to the Class of 1986. As a 1986 alumnus, it brings me great honor and humility to present the 2012 Crown Forum Lecture at Morehouse College, the college known for producing physician leaders, such as former United States Surgeon-General Dr. David Satcher, and Dr. B.K. Edmond, our first MD/JD. I acknowledge your efforts in making Morehouse College what it is, and will continue to be. I pay tribute to you all for what you have done and continue to do, for molding and shaping so many lives, for continuing to inspire and motivate so many young people, for establishing a legacy that will forever endure. I remember Dr. Tom Blocker. I remember Dr. Frederick Map who pulled me aside and talked earnestly to me during our graduating banquet, assuring me that my future was bright, giving me reason to believe in myself. I thank you all very, very much. Let's talk about Health Care Reform It was the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who in a 1966 speech to the Medical Committee for Human Rights said, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." Among the issues that I will address during my presidency of the National Medical Association (NMA), I have identified three key areas that will receive the highest priority. They are Health Care Reform, Disparities, and Stigma. Today I will focus primarily on Health Care Reform. What it is, what it means to YOU, African Americans, why the NMA supports it, and why all African Americans should support it. I speak about Health Care Reform in the context of my abiding principle in life, which is, "Where there are problems, let's solve them." The mission of the NMA is to advance the art and science of medicine for people of African descent through education, advocacy, and health policy. Further, its mission is to promote health and wellness, eliminate health disparities, and sustain physician viability. Although the NMA has focused primarily on health issues related to African Americans and medically underserved populations, its principles, goals, initiatives, and philosophy encompass all ethnic groups. As a result, the NMA promotes health care for all Americans. Personally, as a physician who has cared for the poor and underserved for over 22 years, I believe that health care should be a right for every American irrespective of race, ethnicity, gender, age, or socioeconomic status. [End Page 1] On November 4, 2008 we elected Barack Obama President of the United States. President Obama was sworn in on January 20, 2009 and on March 23, 2010 he signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA). It is the landmark health care reform legislation of our generation. As an association, the NMA emphatically supports the Affordable Care Act. It was imperative that the government carry out this reform because the system we had in place was not efficient, not effective, and not equitable. As an example, I started my private practice in 1997. Prior to the ACA, as soon as a patient, for instance, an African American woman with her son, walked into my office, I knew that there was a 1-in-5 chance that they did not have health insurance. As I looked at her, I knew that there was a strong possibility that she worked but was indigent and lived below the poverty line. I would invite her in, knowing that if she had a major form of cancer, there was no guarantee I could promise her a better outcome than 10 years before, even though the cost of that care had grown to over twice what it was then. If she had cancer, I hoped she would be going against the trend, and have come in early, instead of delaying her visit because she could not afford to pay for a health screening visit. I would hope that the child...

Navigation within an obstacle-rich virtual reality forest by hawkmoths

Navigation within an obstacle-rich virtual reality forest by hawkmoths

Of Cain and Abel: African-American Literature and the Problem of Inheritance after 9/11

In November 2011, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution traced the career of Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain back to his college years in the 1960s at Atlanta's prestigious historically black institution, Morehouse College. Assimilating Cain into the image of the race man most often conjured in relation to other Morehouse luminaries—Martin Luther King, Jr., Maynard Jackson, Howard Thurman, Benjamin E. Mays—the article presents Cain as evidence of the widening variance in social and political perspectives in post-civil rights black American culture, even as it firmly anchors him in a kind of modern black political masculinity. United Negro College Fund president Michael Lomax tells the reporter, for example, “The elements of what you see in Herman Cain today were seeds planted, developed and nurtured at Morehouse[. … ] He is vintage Morehouse, as far as I am concerned. Strong personality. Forceful. Engaging. A supercharged ego. … Those are all elements of Morehouse.” A current Morehouse student and black Republican tells readers, “So often we're given this media stereotype of a black Republican as someone who is outside mainstream black America, but Cain's run does away with all these stereotypes. … He was born in the South, went to Mother Morehouse … and is still very much so connected to Black America” (Suggs).

Primary Care Providers’ Attitudes and Beliefs About Patients’ Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use for Asthma Self-Management

Background: Asthma is a major cause of health resource utilization, poor quality of life and disability. However, adherence to asthma treatments remains relatively poor, partially because patients often prefer to use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) instead of conventional therapies. Moreover, individuals with asthma are reluctant to disclose CAM use with their providers. It was suggested that providers’ negative attitude towards CAM is one barrier to creating an open dialogue. Purpose: The aim of this exploratory study was to identify primary care providers’ attitudes and beliefs about their asthma patients’ CAM use. Methods: Providers who referred patients into a research study about asthma self-management, including CAM, completed three surveys: the revised Integrative Medicine Attitude Questionnaire (r-IMAQ) ; the 10-item CAM Health Belief Questionnaire (CHBQ); and the 30-item Morehouse College Survey of CAM Practices (MCSCAMP). Results: Of the 21 referring providers, 14 physicians and 2 nurse practitioners were enrolled. Seven were male (44%); 13 White (81%), 2 Asian (13%), 1 Black (6%); mean age was 45.7. All providers endorsed the majority of r-IMAQ items and an additional CHBQ item. The MCSCAMP found fitness and nutritional approaches to be the most common health practice (94%), followed by counseling (56%), and prayer/spiritual healing (50%). Conclusions: The results of this exploratory study suggest that providers have positive opinions about CAM, uniformly endorsing items related to spirituality, the importance of patient-provider partnerships and patients’ beliefs. However, there was relatively low personal use of CAM by providers.

P04.03. Primary care providers’ attitudes and beliefs about, and personal use of, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)

Methods PCPs who referred patients into a research study about asthma self-management, including CAM, completed three surveys. The modified Integrative Medicine Attitude Questionnaire (m-IMAQ) is a 23-item survey that solicits beliefs about CAM and its role in treatment. The 10-item CAM Health Belief Questionnaire (CHBQ) asks about CAM attitudes and beliefs not included in the m-IMAQ. Lastly, the 30-item Morehouse College Survey of CAM Practices (MCSCAMP) characterizes PCPs personal CAM use. All subjects received a $100 gift card for participation.