Retaining African Americans in Higher Education: Challenging Paradigms for Retaining Students, Faculty, and Administrators (review)

Retaining African Americans in Higher Education is a timely and novel approach to a critical topic. Edited by Lee Jones, associate dean for academic affairs and instruction in the College of Education and associate professor in Educational Leadership at Florida State University, the volume contains 14 chapters, a preface, a conclusion, and two personal reflections that describe issues related to the retention of African American students, administrators, and faculty at predominantly white colleges and universities. “Written about African Americans, by African Americans” (p. xii), this book is recommended by a white woman for higher education administrators, faculty, researchers, and policymakers of all racial and ethnic groups. Disciplines Education | Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Educational Sociology | Higher Education | Higher Education Administration | Race and Ethnicity This review is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/gse_pubs/298 Laura W. Perna is assistant professor, Department of Education Policy & Leadership, University of Maryland. The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 73, No. 5 (September/October 2002) Copyright © 2002 by The Ohio State University Retaining African Americans in Higher Education: Challenging Paradigms for Retaining Students, Faculty, and Administrators, edited by Lee Jones. Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2001. 288 pp. $59.95 ($24.95) LAURA W. PERNA, University of Maryland Retaining African Americans in Higher Education is a timely and novel approach to a critical topic. Edited by Lee Jones, associate dean for academic affairs and instruction in the College of Education and associate professor in Educational Leadership at Florida State University, the volume contains 14 chapters, a preface, a conclusion, and two personal reflections that describe issues related to the retention of African American students, administrators, and faculty at predominantly white colleges and universities. “Written about African Americans, by African Americans” (p. xii), this book is recommended by a white woman for higher education administrators, faculty, researchers, and policymakers of all racial and ethnic groups. The perspectives included in this volume offer insights that may be particularly helpful for guiding practice and research in this post-affirmative action era. The recent legal and political attacks on affirmative action in college admissions, most notably Proposition 209 in California and Hopwood vs. Texas (1996), provide one stimulus for rethinking traditional approaches to the retention of African Americans. Although discussions of the legal issues pertaining to affirmative action are quickly dated, given continuing developments in this area, Eugene L. Anderson, doctoral candidate in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Virginia, provides a succinct review of the legal history through July 2000. Original thinking on this topic is also needed because, despite numerous suggestions for closing the gap, retention in higher education continues to be lower for African Americans than for whites. Those who care about the retention of African Americans in higher education need to carefully consider the most appropriate ways to communicate this persisting problem. One of the primary weaknesses of this volume is that the continued underrepresentation of African Americans among 652 The Journal of Higher Education