Address graduate disparity at UNC

As graduation approaches and my fellow seniors prepare to leave this place with a degree representing four years of hard work and joyous memories, I’d like to take time to talk about the people who don’t reach that momentous occasion on time.

In May of last year, more than 38 percent of African-American male seniors didn’t graduate. That is nearly twice as many as African-American female seniors.

To shed light on the communities that are taking longer to earn their diplomas, we must focus on just why it takes them longer to get there.

We must also hold the University accountable because, after all, it is the University’s mission to invest knowledge and resources in a diverse student body to ensure equitable access to learning. And if it isn’t effectively progressing toward that mission, we, the University’s main stakeholders, must seek change.

Certainly, factors beyond the University’s reach, such as rigor of high school curricula and access to advanced academic resources, play a significant role in how well students adapt to college and how long it takes to make that adjustment. But there are others well within the scope of the undergraduate student experience that can significantly change the aforementioned graduation rate for the better.

There are many resources and programs at the University that help students transition from high school-level work to undergraduate coursework. One example is the Summer Bridge Program, run through Center for Student Success and Academic Counseling, which allows students from high schools that lack college preparatory courses to take classes the summer before freshman year.

The Center for Student Success and Academic Counseling also runs the Minority Advisory Program that links first-year minority students with older students with similar academic interests to foster peer mentorship.

As a student who participated in the program as both a first-year student and an upperclassman mentor, I know this program is doing its part to ensure that first-years are aware of the abundant opportunities available at the University.

I know these programs are doing their best to make the high school to college transition as smooth as possible. But even with programs like this one, there is still a greater need than these programs can serve.

After freshman year, there are few resources or programs that provide guidance specifically to minority students. It is as if all the pomp and circumstance of freshman year disappears — and that is when students can fall through the cracks.

Some feel as though, in part because of the shortcomings of faculty diversity, they don’t have people to give sound academic advice.

To better serve minority students, and more specifically minority males, there should be programming and resources that target upperclassmen and facilitate stronger faculty-student mentorship.