Your Opinion: Black role models in higher education

Dear Editor:

Students at the University of Missouri complain about the lack of black professor role models. Have any of the students thought seriously about the cause of the lack of black professors?

Only 12.5 percent of master's degrees are awarded to blacks, and only 6.6 percent of doctorates. No doubt many blacks with masters or doctorate degrees choose not to go into the teaching profession.

Blacks make up 15.6 percent of high school age Americans. Only 68 percent of them received high school degrees in 2012, compared to 86 percent of whites who make up 66.4 percent of the age group.

Analysis by Attendance Works indicates that students missing three or more days of school per month do demonstrably worse on tests. In Missouri 18 percent of white students and 24 percent of black, fourth graders, meet this level of truancy. (Doesn't Missouri have truancy laws that hold parents accountable for children missing school?) Poverty has direct links to school truancy.

Since government started rewarding those who eschew the classic family lifestyle we have seen a dramatic rise in births to unwed mothers. Sixty-eight percent of black babies and 29 percent of white babies are born to unwed mothers. Over 30 percent of families headed by a single woman live in poverty while only 6 percent of families headed by married couples live in poverty.

Is it possible that we have too few black university professors because too few black children are encouraged to take advantage of a free public education and the university level financial assistance provided to those in poverty? (In Indiana the 21st Century Scholars program provides a free university education to qualified students, although few take advantage of the program.)

Role models of similar ethnicity are important but they are vastly more important when children are young. I was fortunate, I had a father, grandfathers and uncles who were role models. They were all hard-working, blue collar males who believed that it was their responsibility to provide for their families, even if that meant working a full- and a part-time job.

University students should be capable of seeking out role models. Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, David Webb, Starr Parker, Herman Cain, Clarence Thomas, Ben Carson are just a few.

Life isn't fair, but if you were born in America you were already born with a silver spoon in your mouth, when compared to the rest of the world.