Combating Drop-Out Problem;
Erecting a Future Full of Hope and Life Long Learning
By Robert Waddell, April 19, 2009
 According to the Department of Education statistics, nearly half of all incoming high school freshmen potentially will drop out or come close to dropping out. The highest statistic percentage of drop outs listed in order is Latino males then African American males, Latino women and African American females. This is a staggering fact considering the current economic climate and impact this could have on the local economy.
Programs like Young Adult Borough Centers, GED programs and transfer schools provide a much needed buffer to the growing drop out problem. It is a disgrace that public education has failed so many young people of color. In recent years, the idea of individualized attention and smaller class rooms has been introduced as working well for students and facilitating a more positive academic learning environment. Smaller and more personalized are watchwords in education today. Educators have to hard job competing for student’s attention, not only from peer pressure but from the internet, Black Berries, cell phones, ipods, video games and a host of other gadgetry detracting students from their educations.
However, let’s turn back the clock back to the 1970s when many Latinos were also dropping out. If one compares statistics and ratios, one would find that this problem hasn’t gone away or changed much in 30 years. In the 70s, a solution came from an ingenious group of educators who got together to create Boricua College, the only Puerto Rican privately owned college on the U.S. mainland. This was the vision of founder and current Boricua College President Dr. Victor G. Alicea. The college’s focused mission was, and still is, a student centered approach to learning with small classes and much personalized attention.
It seems that today’s public education drop out remedies did not invent something new but are in fact playing catch up to Boricua College’s model of educational integration.
 Presently, a new state-of-art educational building is being erected in the South Bronx called Boricua Village, which will house a new college building, a high school, child care facility, a museum, a theatre, underground garage, and greatly needed affordable housing.
This reporter is reminded of another visionary project conceived years ago by New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. In the 1980s, when the economy was floundering, ad revenues were down, newspapers stopped printing or began to lay off employees, Mr. Sulzberger decided to build not one but two modern printing plants in Carlstadt, New Jersey and College Point, Queens. Some would say this gutsy move lead to the erection of the new Times building on 8th Avenue.
Mr. Sulzberger wasn’t afraid to expand, while others were shrinking their businesses or played it safe holding tight so not to loose or to gamble or take a chance. Building two new printing plants was not throwing caution to the wind but it was a bold move to decide to grow while others retracted. Mr. Sulzberger’s vision and investment proved wise not to mention profitable. He was bringing his newspaper into the 21st Century.
The same can be said of Boricua College and the creation of Boricua Village. During these perilous economic times Boricua College has boldly decided to expand and move forward courageously, in the process creating jobs and housing, two commodities in short supply in the South Bronx. More important, the college offers another vital educational option to students of all ages and nationalities in the Bronx.
Recently, this reporter (who in full disclosure is employed as a faculty facilitator at Boricua College), received an email from a former professor of Boricua College who told me that she missed being able to “give back” to her community. She missed educating students and giving them an opportunity at learning that they normally would have felt unavailable to them.
For over 30 years, Boricua College has educated and trained the most enthusiastic students who would go on to become teachers and human service workers. Like traditionally African American colleges, or Yeshiva University, or Notre Dame, or any Christian college, Boricua College is open to everyone, not only Latinos. The education that Boricua College students receive prepares them and makes them a force to be reckoned with in the world of work or when pursuing post-secondary degrees, because of the intense skills, academic and values training students receive at the college.
 When I say values, I mean students grow their cognitive, affective, life long learning abilities as well as developing self-awareness as members of a local and global community. The brain and the heart are not cut off from one another and neither is the student from recognition of his or her own potential and place in the world.
There is an interesting phrase many Latinos, especially Puerto Ricans, have used, “a tu servicio” or “soy un servidor,” meaning that one is at service to the greater good to another human being or the community as a whole. Put another way, “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile,” said Albert Einstein. Or Albert Schweitzer’s quote, “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
In many ways, Boricua College is still a brand new youthful college with hope for the 21st century and beyond, investing not only in buildings but in the potential of all of its students and the community as a whole. The faculty and administrators work tirelessly to give students a sense of mastery and a sense of self-empowerment. The worst poverty has always been, not of money or wealth, but the poverty of the mind and soul.
Too often history is littered with individuals panting and salivating for the opportunity to learn, acquire knowledge and possess the ability to put that knowledge to good use for themselves, their families and their communities.
To date, not only has Boricua College enriched the lives of thousands of students but it has instilled a sense of pride, dignity, self-worth and potential in its graduates. This legacy goes beyond drop out statistics or the durability of new buildings, this education has a lasting impact and endures for generations upon generations into the lives of the children’s, chidren’s, children’s children of Boricua College graduates. Conquering fear, learning how to use one’s own mental abilities is a powerful education which lasts a lifetime.
This story was developed through the Education Beat Writing Fellowship at the New York Community Alliance. |
