Sojourning in a University Academic Vineyard: A Reflection on Teaching, Research, Service and Collegiality

By Allyson A. Sesay Ph.D.

This book chronicles my 15-year sojourning at one of Americas historic institutions Shaw University, founded in 1865 and located in North Carolina, United States of America. It focuses attention in two major areas academic advising and multicultural education because of the influence these two areas can have on students retention and graduation. Research reports on my studies of students evaluation of their academic advising program and advisement of special student populations such as student-athletes constitute the books academic advising component. Exploration of the experiences of the universitys female faculty, the experiences of traditional and non-traditional students taking classes together, and the educational and cultural experiences of white students living and studying as a minority group in a predominantly black institution covers the books multicultural education thrust. The personal satisfaction or psychic incomes which I acquired from my students, faculty colleagues, and administrators are documented in a variety of personal notes, greeting cards, and emails. I hope that the book will inspire others to write about their experiences and update the studies I did and others addressing new problems relevant to the improvement of education at this great institution, as it continues pursuing its motto Strides to Excellence: Only the Best.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491755464

Allyson A. Sesay Ph.D.

Allyson A. Sesay was educated at the Albert Academy and the Milton Margai Teachers’ College in Sierra Leone, West Africa. He also received the BS degree (with distinction) in Agricultural Economics from Langston University in Oklahoma, a M.Ed. in Comparative and International Education, and a Ph.D. in Educational Policy Analysis from The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, United States of America. He has taught in a number of universities in Africa and the United States of America, including Usmanu Danfodio University in Nigeria, Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone; the University of Maine, Howard University in Washington, DC, and Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. Professor Sesay has earned several accolades in academe including the Shaw University Teaching Excellence Award (Teacher of the Year); named in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers on three occasions; and the Fulbright Teaching/Research Fellowship. His scholarly and community service activities have focused mainly on matters boarding on educational policy, curriculum reform, strategic planning, academic advising, institutional accreditation, and multiculturalism. Professor Sesay is currently serving as the Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the Institute of Public Administration and Management, a constituent college of the University of Sierra Leone. He is married with three children.

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Copyright © 2015 Allyson A. Sesay, Ph.D.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-5545-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-5546-4 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 12/07/2015

CONTENTS

Acknowledgment

Preface

INTRODUCTION

I Introduction to Shaw University

ACADEMIC ADVISING

II Academic Advising at Shaw University:What Students Think

III Balancing the Demands of Athletics and Academics: Experiences of Shaw University Student-Athletes

IV4 Talk the Talk and Walk the Walk: An Eye-Opening Experience for Successful Academic Advising

MULTICULTURALISM/MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION

V Traditional and Non-Traditional Students in the College Classroom

VI White Students as a Minority Group in a Predominantly Black University: A Case for Realizing Cultural Diversity and Pluralism

VII Women in the Shaw University Workplace: Perspectives, Successes and Challenges

NOTES OF APPRECIATION

VIII Special Recognition and Gratitude

IX A Bank of Psychic Incomes

CONCLUSION

X Some Personal Perspectives and General Conclusion

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to the many students I had the opportunity and pleasure to teach and advise at Shaw University during my 15 years of sojourning; also, to the many colleagues I got to know and fellowship with during my tenure.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I want to take this opportunity to express a special appreciation to my wife, Irene, for her love, understanding and unwavering support to me during the course of my 15-year sojourning at Shaw University, as well as during the times spent away from her company while putting this work together.

Thanks also to Mr. Marco S. Conteh for the design of the beautiful cover of the book.

PREFACE

This work is written as a way of documenting and sharing the story of my 15-year sojourning at an institution where I had worked for the longest number of years in my professional career in higher education. My 8-year service at UmanuDanfodio University, formerly the University of Sokoto, in Sokoto State, Nigeria provided me a variety of rich academic, cultural and personal experiences that have contributed immensely to enhancing my professional growth.

I was going to put down my Sokoto, and Nigeria experiences in a book like this one but circumstances, including a fire accident that gutted my residence in Sokoto, did not make this possible. My rare socio-cultural experiences as the only black faculty member at the two universities where I worked in the state of Maine for three years also presented me with an opportunity for a book of this nature. However, for one reason or the other, this did not materialize. Determined to not let this happen with my 15-year experiences at Shaw University in the state of North Carolina, USA, the impetus for writing this book remained very strong as I dedicated myself into preparing this manuscript amidst many competing projects.

This work which I have titled Sojourning in a University’s Academic Vineyard chronicles my experiences and contributions in academe as a teacher, researcher, academic adviser, community servant, and colleague. The studies reported in the book have focused primarily on two broad areas – academic advising and multiculturalism/multicultural education. These are critically important areas with far-reaching implications for providing a good quality education for the students placed in our care to develop into the critical-thinking, problem-solving, and social-change agents needed to function effectively in our increasingly interconnected and interdependent global village.

I must add that I am grateful to have had the opportunity to acquire a wealth of rich professional and personal experiences while sojourning at a great institution with a very rich history and a laudable mission, and which has made great contributions to education to not only the State of North Carolina, but to the United State of America and the world at large. I am happy and lucky to have been a small part of that history.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction to Shaw University

A brief introduction to Shaw University will provide a background to facilitate a better understanding of the topics discussed in this book. The university, a church-related, co-educational, liberal arts institution, founded in 1865, is the oldest historically black higher education institution in the Southern United States of America. Its mission is to advance knowledge, facilitate student learning and achievement, to enhance the spiritual and ethical values of its students, and to transform a community of diverse learners into future global leaders (Shaw University, 2010, p.2). The education so provided will enable the graduates to lead productive lives and to pursue successful professional careers as citizens in a globally competitive society (p.2). Though the university seeks to attract students of diverse backgrounds, it has maintained a special interest in the education of minorities who have been traditionally excluded from the mainstream of American education (Shaw University, 1997, p.4). The university provides instruction at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Apart from being the oldest historically Black university in the South, Shaw University possesses other characteristics of historical significance. For example, it built the first dormitory for Black women in the United States, named Estey Hall, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places; it founded the first four-year medical school in the country which in 1886 graduated its first medical doctors. Graduates of Shaw’s medical school provided selfless services to their communities. In the political realm, Shaw University conducted a study that investigated the problem relating to the exclusion of deserving Black World War II veterans from the distinguished Medal of Honor for their heroic service. The study culminated in the award of this honor to seven of the ten recommended veterans, which was undeniably a great achievement for the veterans and also for justice.

Another achievement of political significance was the establishment of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Started in a very small way by four students who decided to organize a sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina to protest racial injustice, the SNCC grew into a major grassroots organization that adopted the non-violent direct action philosophy and style advocated by the civil rights champion, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Formed in 1961 at a meeting held on Shaw University’s campus, the SNCC has been characterized as the civil rights movement’s cutting edge. http://www.sncc.50thanniversary.org/sncc Putting their lives on the line and, for some, their educational careers on hold for some time, members of the SNCC worked relentlessly to enhance voter registration which culminated in the election to political office of a number of prominent black officials across the southern United States of America. It is safe to say that the election of our first Black president in the person of Barrack Obama can be attributed to some extent to the uncompromising and selfless activities of the SNCC which was launched at this historic higher education institution, the first in the South, called Shaw University. No wonder, therefore, that the SNCC saw it fitting to hold the 50th Anniversary of its founding at Shaw University in April of 2011.

Student enrollment, as of the fall semester of 2011-2012, was 2,550, according to statistics from the Office of Strategic Planning Institutional Advancement and Evaluation (OSPIRE). Of this population, 34.5 percent of the university’s students were enrolled in the College of Adult and Professional Education (CAPE) at nine locations across the state of North Carolina and two correctional centers. The CAPE programs were designed specifically to provide educational opportunities for working adult (non-traditional) students by offering classes in the evenings and on Saturdays.

The Divinity School had taken the lead in offering online courses at the university. Online course offerings to supplement the Video Tele-Conferencing (VTC) course delivery system were introduced in 2006 at the undergraduate level, starting in the Department of Education, to meet the needs of Education Majors and other students at distant locations. The technology for online course delivery has changed from Blackboard to Moodle.

The university’s student population remains predominantly African American (about 85 %). The population of White, non-Hispanic students has remained very low – 1.20 percent in the 2006-2007 academic year to 1.80 percent in 2010-2011(OSPIRE, 2011, p. 51). Asians/Pacific Islanders, Hispanics/Latinos, and Native Americans together made up less than one percent of the entire undergraduate student population in the fall semester of the 2010-2011 academic year. The university has to do more to increase its students’ racial/ethnic diversity. Representation of Whites and other non-Blacks among the full-time instructional faculty was somewhat higher. In the fall semester of 2010-2011 academic year, Whites accounted for 25 percent of this group (a 7 percent increase from 2006-2007), Asians/Pacific Islanders made up seven percent, Hispanics two percent, and Native Americans one percent.

As a religious institution which was founded by an ordained Baptist minister, Shaw University places great emphasis on inculcating religious values in its students. Character education has therefore been an important and integral part of the institution’s curriculum and has been institutionalized starting with Freshmen Orientation. "All freshmen are required to sign the following code of conduct:

• To hold in trust the traditions, practices and laws that govern this historic institution.

• To respect all property, discouraging vandalism, and theft of any and all things that do not belong to me. Most especially, to respect myself, exhibiting virtues, morals, discipline and the cultural matrix upon which Shaw University was founded.

• To be accountable always for my personal, social, and professional conduct.

• To celebrate diversity: I recognize, and therefore, affirm the dignity and worth of others who live, work, and/or study in the community.

• To discourage any behavior within myself or among my peers that will jeopardize the integrity and reputation of this university.

• To foster an open caring environment" (Shaw University, 2008, p.24).

With the arrival in 1988 of President Dr. Talbert O. Shaw, an ordained minister with a doctorate in Theological Ethics, the focus on character took on greater dimension. Predicated on his belief that the moral drift in our nation, that has invaded college campuses, thus impacting student behavior in many ways, he championed the move to revise the institution’s curriculum requiring all students, regardless of their majors, to take nine credit hours of ethics and values … beginning with introduction to the discipline of ethics and advancing to courses dealing with professional ethics (p. 25). Though this requirement has been modified during a recent re-visioning of the university’s curriculum to provide greater emphasis on improving students’ reading and writing ability, ethics, nonetheless, continues to be an important component of a Shaw University student’s education.

A unique aspect of Shaw University that epitomizes its genuine concern about and commitment to cultural diversity is the presence of a mosque which serves persons of the Islamic faith in the institution and its community. A mosque conspicuously located in a Christian university like Shaw is not common in the United States of America. Since I have been at this Baptist-affiliated university over the past 14 years, I have never heard of or witnessed any form of religious discrimination or intolerance, not even after the disastrous terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York and Pennsylvania by Muslims that caused the deaths of thousands of innocent Americans, including children.

The university has faced some challenges during its 146 years of existence mainly because of poor finances, but it has managed to survive and has continued to produce quality graduates, many of whom have made and continue to make significant contributions to the nation and the world. Table 1.1 below summarizes, in chronological order, the accomplishments of just a handful of the many distinguished alumni of this historic institution.

Table 1.1: Accomplishments of Selected Shaw University Alumni

Source of Data: Adapted from Shaw University’s Fact Book (12th Edition). 2010-2111.

Shaw University laid the foundation for the establishment of other colleges in the state of North Carolina. As can be seen in the table, examples of these institutions are North Carolina A & T State College which became the present North Carolina A & T State University; and Elizabeth City State College, now Elizabeth City State University. The first presidents of both these institutions were Shaw University alumni. Other alumni have also made significant contributions in the field of higher education administration. Dr. James E. Cheek, a 1955 graduate, became Shaw University’s first alumnus to be appointed president of the institution. The main library, the James E. Cheek Library, was named in his honor. After a successful tenure as President of the University of the District of Columbia in Washington, DC, 1967 graduate William L. Pollard took over the presidency of Medgar Evers College, a position he still holds.

This historically Black institution, founded specifically to provide education for freed slaves, has also produced many graduates from Africa who returned to their native countries and made significant contributions to their development. Two such prominent alumni are Angie Brooks who not only served her native Liberia as Associate Justice of the nation’s Supreme Court but also served as President of the United Nations General Assembly. After receiving her degree in theology from Shaw’s Estey Seminary, Lula Fleming returned to Africa where she became the first Black female missionary.

The university’s alumni have also made important contributions in the fields of business, entertainment and sports. Edward C. Dolby of the class of 1966 rose to the prestigious position of President of Bank of America Carolinas; the legendary Shirley Caesar, Grammy Award winner, dubbed Queen of Gospel Music, is not only a great musical success but also a renowned minister. The sport of boxing has not been known to have athletes who have had some college education, let alone college degrees. Shaw University alumnus of the class of 1975, James Bonecrusher Smith, was an exception; he was the first heavyweight boxer to graduate from college with an earned, and not an honorary degree.

A 1971 graduate, Willie E. Gary, is a special success story. Coming from an impoverished economic background, the kind of background from which I believe founder Elijah Shaw envisioned the students he targeted would come, the resilient Willie Gary entered Shaw University on a football scholarship. Other colleges and universities did not give him a chance for a postsecondary education. After graduation from Shaw University, this highly self-motivated and resilient young man went on and earned a law degree from North Carolina Central University. Shortly after he established his own law firm which did not take long to metamorphose into one of the most successful firms in the United States, and I am inclined to believe, one of the best in the world. A senior partner of this prestigious firm, Attorney Gary has employed some of the best legal minds from the best law schools in the nation. The firm has won several high-profile cases, gaining as much as five hundred to seven hundred million dollars in each settlement. This multi-millionaire and philanthropist, has never forgotten Shaw University’s contribution in making him the success he is today. He is the current chairman of the institution’s Board of Trustees, and he continues to support his alma mater financially, morally, and spiritually. Attorney Gary exemplifies the fact that any student coming to Shaw