Male students of color at the Community College of Baltimore County seek community and support services every day from the Male Student Success Initiative. And this year, the program is expanding.
The program, which focuses on increasing retention and academic and career success for men of color, is one of only 15 projects nationwide to receive a $75,000 “takeoff” grant from the University of Southern California’s Race and Equity Center.
Director Sunni Solomon said the funds will create more opportunities for high-achieving student participants on the honors academics track.
“Allowing a grant to fund that work has us in a position now where we can focus more money that's provided by the institution and that's raised here on our students that are really trying to find their way or are struggling academically,” Solomon said.
“Men of color aren’t a monolith; everyone has different interests,” he added. “With the support we have, we're able to kind of do different things.”
The Male Student Success Initiative offers a wide range of services for its 360 students – up from 127 in 2022, Solomon said. Students are matched with a mentor, given paid internship opportunities at local companies like Baltimore Gas and Electric and Medstar, and are fast-tracked to the community college’s Honors program.
Students at the Essex campus also have access to the one and only gathering space for MSSI. Some flock to the Playstation in the corner of the small but vibrant room, while others hunch over laptops and notebooks.
“For the first time, we all have a big group of us that look the same, speak the same, dress the same. And it just feels nice to be able to just collaborate with each other,” said Jalin Boger, one of the student members. “You don't really have that outside of college. You don't really see a lot of people that look like us coming together and actually doing things that are positive.”
But MSSI is not just a fun club, Boger said. It also comes with responsibilities.
Students have to maintain a 2.0 GPA and meet with their mentors at least three times per semester to maintain membership.
Derrick Ebert is one of five mentors working through MSSI. He says students tell him what they need, and he makes connections.
“Do they need to work on their grammar, be in contact with their professors? I'm going to figure out how we can help them out,” Ebert said.
He wants to “make sure we're moving the needle with guys, giving them the resources they need” like scholarships or tutoring center support.
These mentorship relationships help break the stigma that men of color can’t ask for help, Boger said.
“A lot of men are color prideful, and it's okay to have pride. But at the same time, if you're so prideful that you can't ask for help, that's kind of where an issue comes in,” he said. “I feel like MSSI breaks that pride down a little bit to where it's like it's okay to ask for help. Because the opportunities that are behind that door when you ask for help are crazy.”
And those opportunities are only increasing, Solomon said. Last year, 21 students received internship placements. This year, Solomon wants to make that number higher.
Internships serve as a retention strategy, Solomon said.
“We’re introducing them to a whole new world of being and seeing themselves moving forward with the degree,” he said. “There is a market for them when they graduate. People are interested in employing them and training them.”
MSSI has a retention rate of 65%, Solomon said, which is higher than the community college’s overall retention for male students of color. But it wasn’t always that successful.
“Two years ago, we were just trying to get people to show up,” Solomon said. “And now we just have constant traffic. They're always stopping and they are communicating their needs, letting us know what's going on in their lives in general, what's happening with their classes.”
Part of that success stems from an increased investment from college leadership.
“After the unrest the summer when George Floyd was killed, our campus leadership made a renewed vow to support this population, men of color, to pay more attention to the issues and concerns and hurdles that they were facing,” Solomon said.
Leaders “put their money where their hearts were,” establishing full-time funded positions and providing the Essex campus gathering space.
Now, the program is “exponentially growing,” Solomon said. “We have this working model of student engagement, and we want to replicate it on the other main campuses.”
A second gathering space, like the one at Essex, will open at the Catonsville campus by the end of this academic year.
“It's just created a better sense of community for these guys. It created a landing space,” Solomon said. “The relationships have bloomed from something that was just operational to really a community.”
