Catholic
College and Universities X marks the spot
By ARTHUR JONES NCR Staff,
New Orleans
The Xavier Herald headline
tells the tale: Fewer minorities are going to college; study says number
of blacks in college isnt growing.
But the numbers are growing at Xavier, the nations only
university that is both African-American and Catholic.
Whats the draw? High expectations, challenging academic
standards, an ambitious student body and something to do with black and
Catholic -- though there are more Baptists (35 percent) than Catholics (33
percent).
Xavier is where a young Wynton Marsalis polished his trumpet
playing in the junior music school. Almost 40 percent of Xaviers 2,873
undergraduate students -- 90 percent of them African-American -- are biology
majors (a major source of black premedical and pre-dental grads). Twenty years
ago the science faculty sat in on each others classes for 12 months to
more tightly coordinate the curriculum and eliminate overlap.
Xavier is different. The first school bus was not for the sports
teams but for the choir. Theres a pharmacy school that produces about 100
PhD pharmacists annually. Its a campus to which 1956 Xavier graduate and
world-class soprano Annabelle Bernard, after 30 years center stage, happily
returns this year to teach.
Two other Xavier greats later returned to its classrooms are 1976
graduate, jazz clarinetist Michael White (recipient of the Royal Norwegian
National Music Medal of Honor and Frances highest award, Chevalier of
Arts and Letters) and 1962 graduate, painter and sculptor John Scott, whose
large public sculptures can be seen in cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, New
Orleans and Birmingham. Both men are currently on sabbatical.
Xaviers black students are not here to avoid racism,
they know theres racism out there, said philosophy professor Joseph
LeFevre. Theyre here because of the universitys supportive
educational environment.
Kim Smith of New Orleans, a junior majoring in physics and
engineering, said that Xavier offers a warm environment and strong
teacher-student relationships. At Xavier after 11 years in 95
percent white Catholic schools, she knew Xavier would meet her
educational needs -- and knew enough about Catholic to expect
more.
Standards at Xavier arent fuzzy; theyre firm. Visiting
rap groups are banned unless they clean up their lyrics. Harold Vincent, Arts
and Sciences dean, crossing the campus one day heard raucous rap coming from a
students car stereo. He stopped to talk with the student and explained:
Not at Xavier. The student complied and apologized.
Heck, until maybe 1955-60, we couldnt play jazz
on campus, and this is New Orleans, said President Norman Francis, a 1952
Xavier mathematics education major. That was because Sr. Elise Sisson, music
department head, said she knew the students could handle jazz -- she wanted
them to be able to handle grand opera, too.
Increasing enrollment
Twenty percent more students apply than can be accommodated.
Francis, president for 30 years and buoyed by the new dormitory and new science
facilities, cautiously increased freshman enrollment from 743 in 1997 to 847
this year.
Xaviers values, standards and care show up in many ways. No
sleeping in class, no skipping class. Deirdre Labat, vice president for
academic affairs and for two decades a biology professor, said that students
watch their language, watch their behavior, and if they miss class we go
to their adviser and say, Whats going on?
A couple of times weve been able to save kids from
disaster, she said. Do all the kids appreciate [close monitoring]?
Not especially. They came to university to get away from that. But later we get
the letters that thank us. Does it mean we hold a hard line sometimes?
Yes.
Arts and Sciences dean Vincent, a former physics professor who has
spent 32 years at Xavier, said Todays [Xavier] kids are not
rebellious. They know whats going on in society and where they want to
go. They are firm in their commitment to do what it takes to get
there.
Labat said, The kids today are smarter, more challenging.
They dont accept everything you say just because you say it, and
theyre achievers. They really believe they can do it.
If these students are ambitious, it helps that Xaviers
values and opportunities were built in at the start. There are 103 historically
black colleges and 220 Catholic colleges in the United States -- but only one
that is both. And, possibly unique for a Catholic college in that era, Xavier
was coed at its start in 1915 (though only this year opened its first coed dorm
building). Seventy percent of the students are female.
Xavier was founded in 1915 by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament
as a high school, with a teachers education department added two years later.
In 1925 came the College of Education and the College of Liberal Arts and
Sciences, including a premed program, with a College of Pharmacy in 1927.
Founder had great foresight
President Francis said, Katherine Drexel and the sisters had
great foresight in choosing what they wanted for Xavier. They looked at where
African-Americans could always find employment. Traditionally it was preaching,
teaching or healing. Drexel founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament
in 1985 to work among Native Americans and African Americans.
The sisters started opening elementary and high schools in
the South, realized they needed teachers and opened the normal school. They
attracted so many eager and bright students, they said lets do a broader
education -- thats when they founded the College of Arts and Sciences.
They built in the sciences early on -- imagine having a small school,
enrollment maybe 400, with a College of Pharmacy, Francis said.
Today the doctor of pharmacy program attracts black and white
students. While Xavier is still a liberal arts school, theres been a
dramatic tilt toward the sciences in the past two decades. Too far a tilt,
suggests Bernard McGhee, Xavier Herald editor in chief and a mass
communications major.
Its an issue with me that sciences get more of the
attention, he said. It even rubs off on the attitudes of the
[science] students.
The science emphasis in a college where business and education had
traditionally been preeminent majors came not from U.S. anxieties about
Russias sputnik in the 1950s, or similar technology-lag worries, but
because the faculty took a magic show on the road after a spate of articles on
the lack of minorities going to graduate school in the health sciences.
African-American kids were not getting the exposure they should have
had, said Francis.
Faculty began going to local high schools with predominantly black
student bodies and offering to perform scientific magic tricks for
chemistry and biology classes. They added science to Xaviers existing
summer programs.
Then came the summertime Stress on Analytical Reasoning -- SOAR --
course. Francis, who has served on the Educational Testing Service College
Boards governing body, watched as SOAR enabled youngsters with Scholastic
Aptitude Test scores of 700 (out of a possible 1,600) to improve by 150 to 200
points, enough to qualify for many colleges and universities.
Soon there was a Big Daddy SOAR for science students, SOAR I for
engineering, SOAR 2 for computer sciences, open to youngsters in the summer of
their junior year in high school. They stay on campus for a month.
How are you doing
this?
Then the Xavier faculty reached down into junior high with Math
Star, Chem Star, and Excel for those interested in writing. Educators began
coming to Xavier and asking, How are you doing this? Now, for two
days every summer, Xaviers faculty is available to anybody who
wants to come and talk about it, Francis said. Much of the information is
on the Internet: www.xula.edu.
In effect, said Francis, we extended the school year for
high school kids an extra four weeks. It ought to be more than a nine-month
year.
Each summer now 1,400 students come in from all over the United
States. Those under junior year cannot stay overnight on campus. They must stay
with relatives in New Orleans.
To bring in the high school students, Xavier went out for money.
Two four-year Howard Hughes Foundation grants, one for $1.8 million, one for
$1.4 million, footed much of the bill. And we make the students pay a
little something, he said.
As we look back, said Francis, I attribute what
happened in the sciences solely to a very devoted faculty. Dean Vincent
smiled. When asked if hed had a couple of weeks summer vacation,
Vincent replied, I got a few days. Dr. Francis finds more ways to get you
to do things during the summer than youd believe.
As an indication of how competitive Xaviers summer programs
are, Francis said, You know, I might be able to lean a little on
admissions to get your student into Xavier, I could never get one into the high
school program.
Xavier has 203 faculty for 2,600 undergrads. Like most schools, it
has its internal legendary names. I got here [as a student] in
1948, President Francis said. Chemistry professor Peter Paytash was
educating young people to go on to medical and dental school. Great art
students under Sr. Lurana Neely -- many going on to graduate programs.
Attendance at the annual grand opera production was
mandatory for 25 years. The voices were unbelievable. These sisters who came
from the East! Sr. Elises family was part of the opera stage. She ran
music and got what she wanted, Francis said.
She wanted a junior music school. Sr. Marie Cecilia Allwein ran it
for 6-, 7- and 8-year olds. And Wynton Marsalis was one of them.
A more modern Xavier legend is J.W. Carmichael, chemistry and
premed professor, a white Arkansan with red hair and wide suspenders who in the
1970s initiated the programs that made Xavier science teaching so cohesive.
Carmichael, chosen by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education
as a national teacher of the year in 1990, wore his first tuxedo when he went
to New York that year to accept the Charles A. Dana Award for teaching
excellence.
Weve
standardized
Vice President Deidre Labat said, Weve standardized.
Xavier doesnt suit every faculty member, just as it doesnt suit
every student. That doesnt mean theyre wrong and were
right.
Francis comments that some would say thats telling the
teacher what to teach and interfering with academic freedom. The Xavier
president takes that in his stride.
Eighty-seven percent of Xaviers faculty have earned
doctorates, 35 percent are female, 36 percent black, and the student-teacher
ratio is 14 to one. Xavier premed graduates report that in medical school their
colleagues are surprised at how much hands-on lab experience Xavier students
get as undergraduates.
Xavier doesnt just aim for the best for its students, but
also for its teachers. Philosophy professor LeFevre, a chemistry professor
before gaining a philosophy doctorate, was well placed to coordinate the
implementation of Xaviers new $3 million Kellogg Foundation-funded
high-tech Center for the Advancement of Teaching, directed by Todd Stanislav, a
biology professor.
Projects in the electronic classrooms, accessible to Xaviers
faculty, range from familiarization with the Worldwide Web, to collaborative
learning, to networked teaching, to faculty orientation. Professors Schifa
Cheng and Bryan Klassen, for example, will develop organic chemistry Web sites
that include course introductions, teaching philosophies and study guides --
Web tools for learning organic chemistry.
Four years ago the National Science Foundation started looking
around to see who was doing what and discovered two things about Xavier. 1) It
ranked first in the number of black students receiving undergraduate degrees in
the physical sciences and first in the life sciences -- even without having a
medical or dental school.
2) NSF found out they werent funding us, Francis
said. Now Xavier has a $10 million-over-five-years grant for equipment,
renovations and scholarships.
Were going to do with this NSF grant what we did in
medicine -- increase the numbers in the graduate programs. Look at the number
of minorities getting PhDs nationally -- 16 in math and computer science.
Thats pitifully poor.
Our bottom line, said Francis, is we want to
improve the number of students going on to graduate and professional schools.
We want to so structure their Xavier experience that they have the option to go
work or graduate school when they leave.
We have six grads at Microsofts headquarters, he
said. They went straight there. Some corporations encourage kids to go on
to graduate studies. Computer science majors -- thats a growing
department. The first floor of the new science building is already
operational, he said.
Were not looking to be a large institution. The virtue
is in whether were a quality institution, said Francis. Then his
enthusiasm got the better of him.
Seen the new library yet? he asked. When I was
here, Xavier students used to go to libraries all over New Orleans for what
they needed. Now, he said, with a touch of pride, other
peoples students come to our library.
National Catholic Reporter, October 16,
1998
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