Sponsored message
Logged in as
Audience-funded nonprofit news
radio tower icon laist logo
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Subscribe
  • Listen Now Playing Listen
  • Listen Now Playing Listen
AirTalk

University of Connecticut black-only learning community draws mixed reactions

EAST HARTFORD, CT - SEPTEMBER 21:  An exterior view of Rentschler Field before a game between the Michigan Wolverines and the Connecticut Huskies on September 21, 2013 in East Hartford, Connecticut.   (Photo by Jim Rogash/Getty Images)
An exterior view of Rentschler Field before a game in East Hartford, Connecticut.
(
Jim Rogash/Getty Images
)
Listen 21:38
University of Connecticut black-only learning community draws mixed reactions

The University of Connecticut is setting aside specific rooms in its new dorm building for more than 40 African-American male students.

On average, male Black students academically underperform at UConn. The school hopes having the students live together and will boost their grades and graduation rates.

The Universities of Minnesota and Iowa have set up similar segregated areas in dorms.

Do you think this is a good response to some minority students' concerns that they have a hard time feeling comfortable on some college campuses? If you were in the distinct minority at the college you attended, would you have liked to have a separate area of the dorms for students of your race, ethnicity, or religion?

Guests:

Nolan Cabrera, assistant professor of education at the University of Arizona; Cabrera's primary research interests include race/racism in higher education

Joe Hicks, co-founder and vice president of Community Advocates, Inc., a Los Angeles-based human and civil rights organization