Charged with writing a column for the April Fool's edition, I drummed up an imaginative one lauding the University Programs Council for finally putting their money where their mouth is and contracting newborn rap phenom Kanye West to perform at Spring Fling later on this month. A great idea, I thought, but then I thought twice about the social scene for black students at the University, and I realized that even though hyping up an event that would probably never happen in a million Spring Flings would honestly turn a few heads, writing about the sorry truth would be probably be taken much more seriously, and be many more times effective in illustrating a serious point.
For the most part, the unfortunate reality is that there is hardly anything funny about the state of black college social life here at the University. Although many of the same incidents occur across racial lines in students' lives, I'm limiting my discussion here only because I know it so well, and simply because it is finally time that it be said in print, and not merely whispered by students passing by one another while on Grounds.
It is true that on the weekends, everyone parties, everyone hangs out and everyone spends time with their friends, time which includes countless hours of chasing after members of the opposite sex. Many men spend time on the sticks playing their PS2s and X-Boxes, and hundreds of women cross telephone lines daily. All the while, instant messages pass frantically from desktop to desktop all across campus, sending the notes of students avoiding that dreaded commitment to their work, or this week's 400 pages worth of reading.
However, I know for a fact that for many African-American students, these social means for passing the time end in more severe results than in the cases of some other students. A closer look at the average GPAs for many African-American students, especially after their first year, would demonstrate that the academic rigor of the University has definitely taken effect, and perhaps the social scene for black students can be held to blame.
It is a little-known fact that for many African-American students, their first semester ends in an abysmal grade point average, and with an internal feeling that all potential that could have been reached has been lost. Unbeknownst to many except those in the black community, many African-American students are faced with the difficult academic climb of pulling themselves out of hole they dug themselves into from their very first set of final exams. Of course, across the board, a host of students, regardless of race, begin with this burden on their backs, but the academic plague that has harnessed itself over African-American students is a problem that often goes unspoken of, and is an epidemic that must immediately be cured.
Though programs like black study time and the Peer Advisor Program, as well as their tutorials sessions, set the stage for academic success for some African-American students at the University, far too few of these students take advantage of the resources. In fact, many African-American students find that notions of academic success comparable to that of their high school years becomes a distant and wishful memory after year one alone, or only surface after many semesters of struggling to get a grasp on how to succeed at the work given by professors and TAs.
It must be understood here that my message is not fodder for any racial bias or inquiry from the University by any means at this point. In reality, my message is far more succinct: Students must be keenly interested in the development of their own academic success, as much as they are in the social scene at the University -- and recognize that there are distinct problems within the African-American student community, many stemming from the internal social scene, and not the external social climate that many might try to blame.
Students must understand that they cannot spend entire weekend days planning for single events on weekend nights, and that it is not in their best interest to spend an excessive amount of time in the dining halls on weekdays instead of attending study groups or tutorial sessions. Students who are suffering academically cannot continue to ignore professors and TAs who can go entire semesters without discovering their names, or without being able to tell them apart from their friends who sit next to them in classes and somehow expect to succeed academically or graduate at the top of their class.
The time for stroking the proverbial ego of the University is long over. Although administrative programs do much of the part in acclimating students to the rigor of the University, it is up to black students to show and prove that they can hack it in the academic department by a show of hands in classroom discussions, and by a show of grades by final exam time.
There is no doubt whatsoever that all students at the University are capable of handling the workload. And although it is very true that the social scene, and those venues and avenues provided for student interaction, are by no means perfect for students of color -- above and beyond, the University provides more than enough resources to make student self-governance, student life and academic success potentially possible for all students.
That said, this year it is on the shoulders of African-American students to pull themselves up and demonstrate their innate abilities to throw down at the parties as well as in the classroom. Even though Kanye West won't be blessing us with lyrics that teach this Spring Fling, I can only hope that as we bounce to his beats in our cars from parties to step shows this April, that we all have that same spring in our step when we enter our final exams come May.
Kazz Alexander Pinkard's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at kpinkard@cavalierdaily.com.
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