X marks the spot: students thrive at America's only black and Catholic university

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 16, 1998 by Arthur Jones

Students thrive at America's only black and Catholic university

The Xavier Herald headline tells the tale: "Fewer minorities are going to college; study says number of blacks in college isn't growing."

But the numbers are growing at Xavier, the nation's only university that is both African-American and Catholic.

What's the draw? High expectations, challenging academic standards, an ambitious student body and something to do with black and Catholic -- though there are more Baptists (35 percent) than Catholics (33 percent).

Xavier is where a young Wynton Marsalis polished his trumpet playing in the junior music school. Almost 40 percent of Xavier's 2,873 undergraduate students -- 90 percent of them African-American -- are biology majors (a major source of black premedical and pre-dental grads). Twenty years ago the science faculty sat in on each others' classes for 12 months to more tightly coordinate the curriculum and eliminate overlap.

Xavier ii different. The first school bus was not for the sports teams but for the choir. There's a pharmacy school that produces about 100 PhD pharmacists annually. It's a campus to which 1956 Xavier graduate and world-class soprano Annabelle Bernard, after 30 years center stage, happily returns this year to teach.

Two other Xavier greats later returned to its classrooms are 1976 graduate, jazz clarinetist Michael White (recipient of the Royal Norwegian National Music Medal of Honor and France's highest award, Chevalier of Arts and Letters) and 1962 graduate, painter and sculptor John Scott, whose large public sculptures can be seen in cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, New Orleans and Birmingham. Both men are currently on sabbatical.

Xavier's black students "are not here to avoid racism, they know there's racism out there," said philosophy professor Joseph LeFevre. "They're here because of the university's supportive educational environment."

Kim Smith of New Orleans, a junior majoring in physics and engineering, said that Xavier offers a "warm environment and strong teacher-student relationships." At Xavier after 11 years in "95 percent white" Catholic schools, she knew Xavier would meet her educational needs -- and knew enough about "Catholic" to expect more.

Standards at Xavier aren't fuzzy; they're firm. Visiting rap groups are banned unless they clean up their lyrics. Harold Vincent, Arts and Sciences dean, crossing the campus one day heard raucous rap coming from a student's car stereo. He stopped to talk with the student and explained: Not at Xavier. The student complied and apologized.

"Heck, until maybe 1955-'60, we couldn't play jazz on campus, and this is New Orleans," said President Norman Francis, a 1952 Xavier mathematics education major. That was because Sr. Elise Sisson, music department head, said she knew the students could handle jazz -- she wanted them to be able to handle grand opera, too.

Increasing enrollment

Twenty percent more students apply than can be accommodated. Francis, president for 30 years and buoyed by the new dormitory and new science facilities, cautiously increased freshman enrollment from 743 in 1997 to 847 this year.

Xavier's values, standards and care show up in many ways. No sleeping in class, no skipping class. Deirdre Labat, vice president for academic affairs and for two decades a biology professor, said that students "watch their language, watch their behavior, and if they miss class we go to their adviser and say, `What's going on?'"

"A couple of times we've been able to save kids from disaster," she said. "Do all the kids appreciate [close monitoring]? Not especially. They came to university to get away from that. But later we get the letters-that thank us. Does it mean we hold a hard line sometimes? Yes."

Arts and Sciences dean Vincent, a former physics professor who has spent 32 years at Xavier, said "Today's [Xavier] kids are not rebellious. They know what's going on in society and where they want to go. They are firm in their commitment to do what it takes to get there."

Labat said, "The kids today are smarter, more challenging. They don't accept everything you say just because you say it, and they're achievers. They really believe they can do it."

If these students are ambitious, it helps that Xavier's values and opportunities were built in at the start. There are 103 historically black colleges and 220 Catholic colleges in the United States -- but only one that is both. And, possibly unique for a Catholic college in that era, Xavier was coed at its start in 1915 (though only this year opened its first coed dorm building). Seventy percent of the students are female.

Xavier was founded in 1915 by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament as a high school, with a teachers education department added two years later. In 1925 came the College of Education and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, including a premed program, with a College of Pharmacy in 1927.

Founder had great foresight

President Francis said, "Katherine Drexel and the sisters had great foresight in choosing what they wanted for Xavier. They looked at where African-Americans could always find employment. Traditionally it was preaching, teaching or healing." Drexel founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in 1985 to work among Native Americans and African Americans.