Md. College, Once A Pioneer, Works To Regain Diversity

Because of the college's philosophical stance that everyone is equal -- even the professors are called tutors to emphasize this point -- the school does not offer merit scholarships. (The school does offer need-based financial aid.)

The recent racial climate at other area campuses such as the University of Maryland at College Park, where a noose was found near the black cultural center, doesn't help Bowden's case with minority parents, either. They worry about sending their kids to a nearly all-white school. And the parents are often baffled by the curriculum: no majors, no tests and no grades given to students (unless they ask to see them).

Then there are the students' concerns: Is it hard to make friends? What is dating like on a mostly white campus?

But the biggest barrier to getting minority students to apply, Bowden said, is that most simply don't know that St. John's exists. So she crisscrosses the region, visiting mostly Catholic, charter and private schools, where minority students might have already gotten a taste of an unorthodox liberal arts education. She travels heavily in the District, Prince George's County, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

It is a strategy that echoes efforts that first brought integration to St. John's. Back then, however, it was the students conducting the search.

In 1947, white GIs returning from World War II to study at St. John's began the agitation for integration. The college's program was built on philosophical discussion, so the former soldiers posed this question: If blacks could fight and die for this country, why couldn't they attend all its schools?

The GIs began visiting black high schools across the region, looking for bright students. At Dunbar High in Baltimore, a guidance counselor pointed them toward Dyer. His family was poor -- his father a steelworker, his mother a domestic -- but his mind was sharp.

"I had never even heard of St. John's," said Dyer, now 77. "You have to understand back then these schools weren't even in the realm of possibility."

Even after Dyer's enrollment, however, it was years before another minority student came to St. John's.

"It was a choice you had to make," said 73-year-old Everett Wilson, who enrolled in 1952. "I had scholarships to choose from and could go to a place like Howard University, which was cream of the crop for black students."

Wilson's mother warned him off St. John's. "She was worried about me being the only black on an all-white campus," he said. But he went anyway and found himself warmly welcomed at the college, though not in greater Annapolis, which was still largely segregated.

Worries like those persist today among students and parents.