When he was in high school, Charlie Helms never dreamed of attending UNC-Chapel Hill, until a Black male teacher encouraged him to apply for the Morehead-Cain scholarship. Helms not only got in, and while he did not get the Morehead-Cain, he received a full-tuition scholarship from the Chancellor’s Science Scholars program.
“I was like a little boy who had just gotten a new toy on Christmas morning,” said Helms, now a 21-year-old alumnus.
With an offer like that, Helms felt sought after — and everyone told him he was. Then, he stepped onto campus and realized he was one of only 95 Black men – out of about 5,000 students — in the class of 2021. The low number of Black men bothered him every day.
“The day-to-day was draining,” he said. “It’s like when you think you’re going to Hawai’i but your parents take you to Myrtle Beach.”
According to a 2017 story in the Daily Tar Heel, UNC-Chapel Hill has been unable to enroll more than 125 Black men per incoming class since 2009. A 2010 study released by the Office of Institutional Research & Assessment showed that only 49.2% of Black men graduate within four years, the lowest of any demographic group.
“I was in the honors section for COMP 110,” Helms recalled from his freshman year, “and I remember the first day of class. The teacher asked who had programming experience. It was me and one other Black male in the class, and everyone’s else’s hand shot up except us. It was just so sad to see that this is going to be my reality for the next four years.”
“They’re so quick to take us in, but then when we say we’re having a problem, it’s just automatically, ‘Just get rid of them,’” Helms added. “There’s so many Black men that started out being me. The only reason I feel like they switch their majors is because their mentors told them it’d be easier to do another major.”
Helms is one of few Black men majoring in computer science. He said that when he sought help from professors, he was met with harshness and disdain. Rather than encouraging him, they harped on his math foundation, urging him to retake Calculus I. One professor suggested that he drop the major altogether, which was not an option considering Helms’ scholarship was contingent upon earning a bachelor of science degree.
“Freshman year I really was about to drop out,” Helms said. “My dad…dropped out after his first year and went into the military, so I was actually talking to (him) about that and the process to enroll in the military. I really wanted to transfer to Howard University because I had gotten in prior to UNC. I just really missed my community…rather than trying to have to always create a space for myself.”
Helms’ father eventually returned to school. Meanwhile, Helms leaned into other communities and programs. He participated in UNC-Chapel Hill trustee William Keyes’ Institute for Responsible Citizenship, an intensive leadership development program for talented African-American men, and the Men of Color Engagement group in the College of Arts & Sciences.
Chris Faison is the former coordinator of Men of Color, which seeks to provide professional, personal and social support to male students of color at the university. It was launched by the Center for Student Success and Academic Counseling,
He said the issue of Black male retention in education does not begin or end with UNC.
“It’s a larger issue of the ways that systems, particularly in education, have pushed Black men out of school and have not encouraged them to stay, unless it’s been through things like sports or other ways to be able to benefit from our bodies or our experience,” Faison said.
Faison said that of the Black male first-year students enrolled annually at UNC-Chapel Hill, an estimated 20% are athletes.
He also cited the 2015 study by the Schott Foundation for Public Education that said that high school graduation rates for Black men nationally decreased from 61% to 59%.
“When we have that and you tie it to the school-to-prison pipeline, you really do have a scant number of African American men that are applying to college, first of all, who aren’t in the military or going into work,” Faison said. “(The Schott Foundation) basically stopped reporting because…they just didn’t want to continue to produce a report that was expensive and time consuming.”
Faison left UNC to pursue his Ph.D. in educational evaluation and policy analysis. But before he left, he was working in initiatives for men of color, specifically Black men, from 2013 to 2019. Black male retention increased approximately 6 percentage points when the organization Men of Color was active.
As a first-year student, Helms attended Men of Color events, which helped him socially, but didn’t help him academically.
“I remember I actually went to a Men of Color (event) and I put down my major, I put down what I needed help with, and they gave me an environmental science major,” Helms said. “It wasn’t what I needed. That wasn’t a person that was going to help me get through my courses.”
Both Faison and Dr. Sibby Anderson-Thompkins, the university’s interim chief diversity officer, agree that supporting students extends beyond the social. It’s a matter of showing genuine interest in their well-being and providing early demonstrated academic and financial support.
“The fact that we have not had an active Men of Color initiative since Mr. Faison left is one of the reasons I think we’ve not made more headway,” Anderson-Thompkins said. “I do think having a community of Black men, seeing other Black men in leadership roles or in the classroom are things that we’re lacking here.”
When Faison left, along with other Black academic leaders, including Vice Chancellor Winston Crisp — who found the money to support Men of Color — it became evident that the progress of the program was dependent on faculty pouring into Black men in ways the institution did not.
The problem is not whether the university has the means to do so, but rather an incongruence of Carolina’s mission as “the university of the people.” Faison said that while Carolina was a part of the last holdout of “public Ivies” that attempted to be an equalizer for families of lesser means, that relationship has changed as the university competes with other institutions to attract high achievers.
“A former head of diversity shared with me that he and others tried to keep institutional leaders clear on the fact that, although its desire is to go after Asian and Asian American students who can have higher achievement marks and make the institution look competitive, as has happened in Ivies, what happens in North Carolina is you don’t represent the state and the way that we show up. And it’s not that we can’t have both,” Faison said.
As of 2019, per the U.S. Census, the state of North Carolina is 62.6% white (not Hispanic or Latino), 22.2% Black, 9.8% Hispanic or Latino, 3.2% Asian, 2.3% two or more races, and 1.6% American Indian or Alaska Native. Whereas in fall 2019, UNC’s undergraduate population was 58.8% white, 8.1% Black, 8.6% Hispanic or Latino, 11.5% Asian, and .4% American Indian. 3.7% selected “race unknown” while 4.9% are two or more races.
The 11.5% consists of 2,201 Asian students — both Asian American and international students — a 101-student increase from fall 2018 (11.0% or 2,100 Asian students). According to data from Fall 2018, 501 undergraduates were Asian international students, with China and India being top producers for enrollment. Per the Wall Street Journal, across higher education, international students often pay full tuition, contrasting the financial situations of Black male students from the state, who may receive partial or full aid.
“Remember, education is a business,” Anderson-Thompkins said. “Though we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion as a priority, that requires investments. When you start to look at students who can pay out of pocket, that is often non-minoritized students and internationals.”
Anderson-Thompkins believes that, for UNC to make the investment into attracting and retaining Black men, it requires reestablishing a cohort program.
She lauded N.C. State University for its African American Cultural Center and its Multicultural Student Affairs Unit. She found it similar to when she served in Carolina’s Office for Minority Student Counseling, which has now been renamed and repurposed as the Student Success office. Additionally, she noted East Carolina University’s Bridging the Gap mentorship program, which seeks to “build transitional growth” in Black males through mentorship and life skills and more.
However, what ultimately made Helms stay was the support of his Black female classmates and advisor Noelle-Erin Romero in the Chancellor’s Scholars Program. Without them, he said he would not have stayed at Carolina, nor have had the gumption to create Black in Technology, a student organization to support Black computer science majors and prevent them from enduring what he did.
“I didn’t even feel like a student most of the time,” Helms said. “I felt like a community leader a lot. I had to create a whole Black organization for myself to feel included in for other Black students to feel included. I just always wonder who I would be if I didn’t always have to build a community around me.”
Graduating in fall 2020 — a semester early — with an above 3.0 GPA, debt-free, a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and a Carolina research scholar, Helms now works as a program manager at Microsoft.
