Harvard University has come a long way since the days when African Americans weren’t allowed to attend the Ivy League. Now, the prestigious institution is admitting its largest numbers of Black students, ever.
According to sources, the class of 2018 will include approximately 170 Blacks from a total of 2,023 students. “Of the accepted students, 11.9 percent are African Americans, a record for the university,” the Journal of blacks in Higher Education reports. “Harvard typically receives a Black student yield of about 70 percent. Therefore, we can estimate that there will be about 165-170 Black students in this fall’s entering class.”
We know two of those young scholars may include Kwasi Enin and Avery Coffey. Enin was accepted to all eight Ivy Leagues and Coffey was accepted to five. Both boys are still making their final decisions on where to spend the next four years or so.
While this is celebratory news, Dr. Boyce Watkins of Syracuse University says the schools still have a long way to go. “While we are tempted to jump up and down in excitement over the school’s decision to accept the fact that Blacks are just as bright as Whites, we might need to take a moment of pause. Even though the presence of black students is very important to a campus, the reality is that admitting students of color neither requires significant courage nor shows any real sign of meaningful progress when it comes to truly shaping the direction of a university,” Watkins explains. “The holy grail of power in any academic environment is the number of tenured faculty positions, which Harvard continues to keep African Americans from obtaining.”
According to sources, the class of 2018 will include approximately 170 Blacks from a total of 2,023 students. “Of the accepted students, 11.9 percent are African Americans, a record for the university,” the Journal of blacks in Higher Education reports. “Harvard typically receives a Black student yield of about 70 percent. Therefore, we can estimate that there will be about 165-170 Black students in this fall’s entering class.”
We know two of those young scholars may include Kwasi Enin and Avery Coffey. Enin was accepted to all eight Ivy Leagues and Coffey was accepted to five. Both boys are still making their final decisions on where to spend the next four years or so.
While this is celebratory news, Dr. Boyce Watkins of Syracuse University says the schools still have a long way to go. “While we are tempted to jump up and down in excitement over the school’s decision to accept the fact that Blacks are just as bright as Whites, we might need to take a moment of pause. Even though the presence of black students is very important to a campus, the reality is that admitting students of color neither requires significant courage nor shows any real sign of meaningful progress when it comes to truly shaping the direction of a university,” Watkins explains. “The holy grail of power in any academic environment is the number of tenured faculty positions, which Harvard continues to keep African Americans from obtaining.”
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