Local students get feel for black universities
New London — For the past 25 years, local alumni of historically black colleges in southern states have invited high school students from throughout New London County to venture into a different climate and culture where they just might find themselves welcomed and put on a path to successful careers.
On Saturday, about 40 high school students gathered at the New London Science and Technology Magnet High School for their final orientation workshop before preparing for a five-day bus tour to visit five historically black colleges, along with Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
The tour will run from April 1822, during April vacation, and will include a visit to the Martin Luther King Monument in Washington, D.C., as the first stop.
Students on Saturday heard from attorney Joaquin Madry and Autumn Marshall, global operations senior manager at Lego, both graduates of Hampton University in Hampton, Va. First, they told the students, be prepared for a culture shock of the stereotypical southern friendly greeting.
On his first day on campus, Madry said someone yelled to him: “Good morning baby!” And when he didn’t respond, the person repeated with emphasis: “When I say ‘good morning,’ you’d better say ‘good morning’ back!”
Marshall said she was immediately pegged as a northerner in a similar situation. “Around here, we don’t say ‘hello’ to strangers,” she said.
The discussion, including questions from the high school sophomores and juniors, went deeper than
proper etiquette. Madry and Marshall said at a historically black college, incoming students would find themselves in an auditorium filled with “1,000 students who look like you,” — not something they would experience in the North.
Professors and counselors demand respect and hard work from students. And students who slack off can expect a lecture and another push from professors to shape up.
At the start of Saturday’s discussion, Marshall asked students with questions or comments to stand, identify themselves and give their grade level. She called it practice for what would be expected at college.
Marshall said she initially became homesick at Hampton and transferred to Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven after one semester. The following semester, she quickly transferred back to Hampton.
Organizers of the annual spring tour realize the southern colleges will not be the primary choice for many local students, said Vouise Fonville, president of the Historically Black College Alumni of New London County and a member of the Norwich NAACP. Fonville, a graduate of Winston-Salem State University, said the preparatory workshops include sessions with local colleges this year, including Three Rivers Community College, Eastern Connecticut State University and Mitchell College.
Other sessions outline the complicated financial aid process and the college application process, including how to conduct one-on-one interviews.
Marshall and Madry both told students to be persistent in applying for financial aid. Marshall said she didn’t pay much attention to financial aid and graduated with $65,000 in college debt. And while she is equally successful in business as her college friends, they are taking vacations to Hawaii and Europe while she pays off that debt. Madry said he kept applying until he was successful in his scholarship applications, never giving up even after the first 100 rejection letters, he said.
“I had enough rejection letters to wallpaper my small apartment in Hartford,” he said.
Students are selected for the tour through an application process, interviews and a review of their academic transcripts. The tour is $275 per student, but scholarships are available, Fonville said.
Guest speaker Lonnie Braxton, a local prosecutor, on Saturday gave the students a combination history lesson and pep talk before sending the students to afternoon workshops on college admissions and tour preparations. Braxton grew up in Greenville, Miss., a short distance from a historically black college.
He grew up in the heat of the Civil Rights movement, when blacks fought through the courts for the right to attend high school. Braxton joined the Navy after high school and came to New London, where he graduated from Connecticut College and the University of Connecticut.
Braxton rattled off alarming statistics for the high school students — high school dropouts earn about $18,000 per year in Connecticut; high school graduates, $28,000; and college graduates, $50,000.
Braxton said his parents never got past the third grade, but they set their sights for him at a high school and college education.
“When it came time to plant the cotton, school stops,” he said of his parents’ experience. “When it came time to pick the cotton, school stopped. … For you, school doesn’t stop unless you make it stop.”