NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Eye-level watermarks, gutted buildings and rows of mobile classrooms linger as reminders of the flooding from Hurricane Katrina that nearly wiped out Southern University at New Orleans in 2005.
Now the predominantly African-American university
faces what students and administrators view as a new threat: Gov. Bobby
Jindal's proposal to consolidate the school with the nearby, mostly white
University of New Orleans.
"It will be the death of SUNO," student
government vice president Ellis Brent Jr. said recently as he worked on a
letter-writing campaign in hopes of killing the idea in an upcoming legislative
session.
Jindal's proposal renews a politically and racially
charged argument that pops up periodically in the roughly 20 states that have
public, four-year institutions known as historically black colleges and
universities, or HBCUs.
"Every time the economy tanks, and certainly,
right now, these are dire economic times, understandably governments and
legislatures look for ways of cutting costs while maintaining and increasing a
level of educational excellence," said Lezli Baskerville, president of the
National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. "We
certainly applaud and salute that.
"The challenge comes when there are broad and
diverse options and the first option appears to be 'let's look at submerging
HBCUs into the historically white college and university system.'"
Jindal is adamant. "It makes no sense to have
colleges blocks apart, neither one of them with graduation rates we can
accept," he said Tuesday at his weekly legislative news conference in Baton
Rouge. At the same time, more than 200 SUNO supporters were gathering on the
Capitol steps to protest the merger.
Students have filed a complaint with the Department
of Justice over the merger, saying the state has discriminated against minority
students, the faculty senate president said Tuesday. Spokeswoman Xochitl
Hinojosa confirmed Tuesday that the Justice Department has received the
complaint.
A 2009 proposal in Georgia to merge two mostly
black colleges with mostly white institutions failed. The following year, the
Georgia NAACP sued the state for alleged systematic underfunding of black
colleges. A 2010 proposal by Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour would have merged
three historically black universities — Alcorn State, Jackson State and
Mississippi Valley state — but it went nowhere.
This latest effort comes as Louisiana faces a $1.6
billion budget shortfall and it's being pushed by a governor with high approval
ratings and no announced opposition so far as he campaigns for re-election in
the fall. Still, it will require a hard-to-get two-thirds vote in the House and
the Senate and has strong opposition from the Democratic Party, black lawmakers
and much of the New Orleans political establishment, including Mayor Mitch
Landrieu.
Jindal insists his proposal is about improving
education, not saving money. Unveiled in January, it comes a little more than
five years after both campuses were badly damaged when levees breached during
Katrina and much of the city flooded. Lower post-Katrina enrollment and low
graduation rates plague both schools, especially SUNO, where the percentage of
students who graduate within six years is less than 8 percent.
A SUNO-UNO consolidation proposal adopted in March
by Louisiana's top higher education board, the Board of Regents, involved
something less than a full-blown merger. Based on a consultant's
recommendation, it called for creation of a "University of Greater New
Orleans" encompassing a consolidated administrative system running both an
"urban research university" with tougher admission standards and a
"Metropolitan University" having, in the consultants' words "a
special role (and obligation) in serving the African-American citizens of the
Greater New Orleans Region." It also would keep the schools with separate
academic officers and accreditations.
Last week, Jindal floor leaders introduced a bill
calling for a more sweeping consolidation, with one accreditation and one
academic chief.
Either recommendation removes SUNO from the
governance of the Baton Rouge-based, historically black Southern University
System. Students and administrators are uneasy about SUNO leaving the Southern
fold and they question whether the consolidated university would truly serve
the needs of New Orleans' black students.
Talk of SUNO's low graduation rate irritates SUNO
administrators.
"It's directly impacted by Katrina,"
chancellor Victor Ukpolo, said during a recent news conference. The percentage
is affected, he said, by the fact that the campus shut down after the August
29, 2005, storm and many students quit or transferred rather than wait for
resumption of classes the following January.
Still, supporters of the merger point out that
SUNO's six-year rate is the lowest in the state — much lower than that at UNO,
around 21 percent, which was also hit hard by the storm.
"What they're not telling you is that, because
the students here are older, work harder and have many life challenges, it
takes them nine years to graduate," Mason said in a separate interview.
Anthony Jeanmarie agrees.
"Most people do not go to SUNO for four years.
That's not going to happen," said Jeanmarie, a 35-year-old SUNO student.
"If your life is complicated in any form or fashion and you want to go to
a university, then SUNO is your place."
And Jeanmarie's life is complicated. A married,
African-American father of three who preaches at a New Orleans church and was
recently laid off from his job at a state Medicaid office, he finished high
school at 16, but was a teenage father by the time he entered college. He said
poor grades got him suspended from SUNO but he returned three years ago to
major in psychology.
"Give this university a chance," he said,
arguing that recently adopted higher admission standards are expected to
increase graduation rates, and noting that enrollment is bouncing back.
National education officials will be watching.
During a recent visit to New Orleans, U.S.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan was careful to say he does not know details of
the current proposal and couldn't comment specifically on it. He made clear,
however, that HBCUs are an important part of the Obama administration's efforts
to increase the number of people getting college degrees.
"A disproportionate number of students going
to HBCUs are first-generation college-goers," Duncan said. "When they
have these opportunities, it doesn't just change their life, it changes the
life of their family for generations to come."
There is trepidation about the proposal, too, on
UNO's campus, where enrollment is more than 11,000. Student Government
Association President John Mineo said students there are concerned about the
uncertainty involved as the consolidation debate heats up.
UNO currently is without a chancellor and the
search for a new leader was suspended recently amid uncertainty over the merger
proposal. Some students worry that they may be affected by tougher requirements
will be adopted at ta new, hybrid university, And, he said UNO students he has
talked to don't think a merger should be forced if SUNO students are opposed.
"I don't think race is an issue," he
said. "SUNO students feel like they're losing their identity and UNO
students feel like they're losing theirs too."
Associated Press writers Melinda Deslatte and Molly
Davis in Baton Rouge, La., contributed to this report.
Copyright
2011 The Associated Press.
Photo
Caption: Anthony Jeanmarie, 35-year-old psychology student at Southern University
at New Orleans, walks past external air conditioning ducts that cool campus
buildings, which replaced the building's ducts that were damaged by Hurricane
Katrina, in New Orleans, Tuesday, April 26, 2011. More than five years after
Hurricane Katrina nearly wiped out Southern University at New Orleans, students
and faculty there are fighting what they portray as another grave threat: Gov.
Bobby Jindal's proposal to consolidate historically black SUNO with the nearby,
predominantly white University of New Orleans. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
