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

By William Wan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 16, 2007

All his life, Martin Dyer's diploma had been a symbol of pride. It told of how, in 1948, Dyer became the first African American student to attend St. John's College in Annapolis and how the college became the first south of the Mason-Dixon line to voluntarily desegregate.

It wasn't until more than five decades later, when Dyer returned to sit on the college's governing board, that he saw the enrollment figures and realized that something had gone wrong. There were even fewer black students on campus than in the 1950s after Dyer graduated, and the percentage of minorities overall had dwindled into single digits.

St. John's, the tiny liberal arts college that had been a pioneer in diversity, had just a fraction of the state and national average for minority enrollment.

Dyer quickly issued a call to arms, writing letters to fellow alums and, with others, forming a committee to tackle the issue. And over the past three years, a movement has taken root to lure minority students and infuse more diversity into the culture of the campus in historic downtown Annapolis.

Colleges across the nation are taking another look at minority enrollment. This fall, universities in 17 states created an initiative to drastically improve enrollment and achievement among minority and low-income students by 2015.

Last month, the University System of Maryland announced it would join the effort. Although minority enrollment overall has increased gradually at most colleges, minorities are still underrepresented.

Military institutions, such as the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, also have plans to increase minority enrollment. Last week, the Naval Academy's new superintendent deemed it one of his top goals during his four-year term. Still, the issue is especially dramatic at St. John's and particularly acute because of its nature and size.

The school is mostly known for its eccentric program, built entirely upon the "great books." In lieu of tests and lectures, students hold discussions on the writings of Aristotle and Dostoevsky. Instead of math textbooks, they study the centuries-old texts of Euclid, founder of a branch of geometry.

Almost every aspect of class and life at St. John's is steeped in classical tradition.

"I tell high school students about the waltz parties and croquet battles, and they just start laughing. They say, 'Oh God, so no hip-hop parties,' " recruiter Ebony Bowden said.

Bowden, a black woman with an easy manner and infectious laugh, was hired last year to spearhead the college's minority recruitment effort. As the admissions counselor for diversity -- a position created two years ago -- her mission is to change the school's image as a place for well-off, white students.

Week after week, she hosts receptions, writes letters, calls and pursues students of color she thinks might like St. John's. But often, it can be a tough sell.

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.

This fall, the number of minority students inched up to 35. With 489 students at St. John's, that equals about 7.2 percent of the student body.

"It can be a scary prospect," said Jamaal Barnes, 20, a black sophomore at St. John's.

Barnes, raised mostly by his grandmother in North Carolina, is the first in his family to attend college. As a high school senior, he had his pick of schools. He applied to 22 colleges and was accepted to 21, most of them offering full rides.

The path to the golden life, he was told, is good grades, internships, diploma and job. The St. John's program didn't fit that mold, which was partly why he chose it.

"At most schools, knowledge is quid pro quo," said Barnes, who meets the more than $45,000 annual cost of attending St. John's with grants, outside scholarships and jobs. "One is learning for the sake of temporary goals: grades, job, money. Everything is a competition: Who's going to be valedictorian? Who's going to get the internship? . . . Here, you take the time to examine the very foundation of things. It's an exercise in intellectual fortitude."

But as St. John's administrators have pursued minority students, they have realized part of the problem is campus culture.

"You can't just say, 'Let's get students of color,' " Bowden said. "There has to be an attitude and environment here for them to feel at home."

W.E.B. DuBois has been added to the school's curriculum. Tutors have held studies on Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass alongside the usual discussions on Ptolemy and Nietzsche. And students, on their own initiative, have led discussions on race and its impact at the college.

"There's not been any hesitation to do this, but there is a desire to do it right," said Barbara Goyette, vice president for advancement. "People want it to happen the St. John's way, in a way that's organic."

Next month, the college plans to host for the first time a campuswide celebration for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A gospel concert is planned, and of course a reading and meditation on King's most famous speech, "I Have a Dream."

For alumnus Dyer, whose presence on campus began with and now centers on the struggle for diversity, the modern-day effort at St. John's is a new source of pride.

"Back then, it was an indication of the character of the school, a place conducive to new ideas and discussion," he said. The only difference now is that the situation has flipped. It's no longer the school that needs to be convinced that it needs minorities, Dyer said, it's minorities who need to be convinced that they need a college such as St. John's.