Tennessee colleges are struggling to graduate Black males. Here’s how one university is making strides.

A group of mostly Black males gathers for a photo in the multicultural affairs office at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville. Some of them are new to college, and others are in their final years of completing a degree.

What they all have in common is the university’s “Man Up” mentorship program in the The Multicultural Office, which brings Black male students together to discuss mental health, finances and career goals.

“In my first semester, I came in with a lot of mental warfare,” says Tjay Floyd, a finance major. “I had just dealt with a yearlong breakup with my ex.”

Floyd, who’s now a sophomore, finished his first few months of college with a 1.0 GPA. He was ready to quit and started making plans to join the military. Then he found “Man Up” and gained a sense of community with the Black males who were a part of it.

“Seeing them still push through whatever they were hiding or not telling everybody else, it was just like, ‘OK, I know I’m not alone. I can do this,'” he says.

Damon Mitchell WPLN News

The Multicultural Affairs Office in the Roaden University Center at Tennessee Tech University serves as a meeting space for the “Man Up” program.

Black males who attend Tennessee colleges are one of the least likely groups to complete a degree. There are financial barriers, mental health challenges and other societal factors that get in the way. But students at Tennessee Tech have been beating those odds.

According to the state’s most recent graduation rate data, only 32% of Black males who attend public colleges actually graduate. The rate was once as low as 23%.

Those statistics have looked different at Tennessee Tech, which also has a small population of Black males compared to other colleges. The school’s completion rate for Black males jumped from 27.9% for students who started in 2011 to 55.6% for students who began in 2015. The exception is the most recent graduating class in 2022, which had a completion rate for Black males of 33.9%.

More: Black males aren’t graduating with their peers from Tennessee colleges. What are the solutions?

Damon Mitchell WPLN News

Robert Owens

The college’s head of diversity, Robert Owens, says the university’s success is something that can be scaled up across the state. In addition to investing in mentorship programs, Owens offers this idea:

“Looking at how athletics coordinates their academic programming for their student athletes,” says Owens, “because they typically have a very solid model. So, I think, that can be sort of mirrored with the general student population.”

This academic year, the university has about 240 Black male students and 27.5% of those students are athletes.

Owens says universities should also involve Black males in planning these programs — which will make them more effective.

“Something else that I think is very important is finding folks that can relate to Black men on campus,” says Owens. “Typically, that’s going to be other Black men, but it doesn’t have to be.”