Annual Conference for Minority Males Promotes Exchange

Author: Dan Polifka

Middlebury College hosted the second annual Work Group on the Retention, Success and Satisfaction of Black and Latino Male Students this weekend, a conference designed to serve as an open forum for the exchange of ideas among students, faculty and administrators.
Nine colleges attended the conference, which took place on Friday night and all day Saturday: Middlebury, Dartmouth, Vassar, Sarah Lawrence, Trinity, Franklin and Marshall, Haverford and Colby colleges and the University of the South at Sewanee. Each school sent a delegation of between two and four members, which consisted of faculty, administrators and at least two students.
The focus of the work group was fourfold: To strengthen black and Hispanic organizations, to promote peer support, to promote faculty-student connections and to establish black and Hispanic driven community service programs.
According to Associate Dean of Student Affairs Marichal Gentry, co-chair of the event as well as the host and administrator from Middlebury, everyone with whom he had talked was "truly fulfilled by the conference."
The conference consisted mostly of a series of workshops and a keynote address by Juan Flores, professor of sociology at City University of New York and an expert in the field of Puerto Rican studies. Flores, who spoke mostly on his experiences in the South Bronx, with hip-hop and in the academic world, proved to be a captivating speaker, triggering a lengthy question and answer session.
Through anecdotes of his life, Flores, who was a German studies professor, managed to touch on many of the issues addressed in this work group, from self-consciousness to the fusion of different cultures. He explained how "the force of self-recognition became an obsession for me … I felt like enough of Goethe, enough of Nietzsche — I've got to get back to the South Bronx."
A big element of the conference was that it was not simply focused on black and hispanic students, but men specifically. Flores noted that it is minority males that are often the most vulnerable in society. "Have your solidarity extend to the most vulnerable in the society," he said. "Let's not underestimate what we as individuals can do."
According to Gentry, strengthening organizations from the individual level down was one of the points emphasized in the conference or which he received the most positive feedback. This idea was explored in a workshop where the students, almost all of whom are leaders on their respective campuses, discussed their experiences running organizations.
Gentry described the conference as an unmitigated success and said that the kind of things they accomplished demonstrated the growth and improvement of the program.
This conference saw a jump in the number of schools participating from seven to nine, and that number will further increase at next year's conference, likely to be held at Franklin and Marshall University.
Considering how this work-group turned out, Gentry said he feels there is no reason not to believe that next year's won't be even better, "We've seen improvement, and I am really excited for even better things next year."