Building cultural bridges for black males entering community college: a cultural progam for black males

Black males in higher education consistently rank toward the bottom of many measures
of academic success. The issue is persistent and insidious, with deep roots going back
generations. The associated cultural and social complexities require a multitude of solutions to
fully overcome the problem. The focus of this dissertation is to develop a program for black
males, particularly those from the environment labeled the “iconic ghetto” (Elijah Anderson,
2012), to mitigate the cultural traits that negatively impact the value they place on higher
education and their sense of belonging in it. It is well documented that transitioning into a new
culture can be an emotionally stressful event if one is unprepared to deal with the changes in
social behavior and methods of communicating.
Many programs exist to support black men as they transition to higher education, but
most focus on mentoring, remediation, fostering a sense of belonging, and other similar topics,
but fail to directly address cultural traits that hinder academic success. The Building Lasting
Academic Achievement into Culture program (BLAAC) adopts the practice used in programs to
help international students and expatriate managers successfully transition to living in a different
cultural milieu. BLAAC builds participant’s awareness of topics related to their culture, its
origin, culture shock, and other culture-related topics that will provide program participants
valuable insight into why certain cultural traits exist so strongly in black males that limit
academic success. The topics also allow participants an opportunity to anticipate and preempt
culturally challenging situations that portend counterproductive outcomes. BLAAC is intended to be one of many tools that college administrators have at their
disposal to combat poor academic performance among black males