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Rattling the status quo

At Florida A&M University, a historically black college, white students often get their first taste of being outsiders. And that leaves many with a decision to make, integrate or separate

By DAVID KARP
Published February 20, 2005

	[Times photo: Willie J. Allen Jr.]
	Freshman Michael Bean, the only white member of the FAMU gospel choir, sings Swing Low and other traditional gospel songs during a recent rehearsal. "Bless his heart," says Cornelius Ann Floyd, the choir's adviser. "He's been hanging in there."
	Shawn Turner, Alsean Bryant and Bryan Stanton study for a quiz on the history of Florida A&M University's marching band during practice recently. Stanton knew in high school he wanted to attend the historically black college, making him a rarity in higher education.
	Faith Crusor and Christie Hollinger chat with Vickey Parker recently at FAMU. When Parker was a freshman five years ago, she wanted nothing to do with campus. Now she's used to being one of the few whites.

TALLAHASSEE - Bryan Stanton remembers when he first heard of Florida A&M University.

He was staring, goggle-eyed, at a video of the world-famous FAMU marching band. The members were whirling around the field, arms flying, feet kicking, bodies gyrating, all in synchronized movement. Stanton had never seen anything like it.

At that moment, he knew where he wanted to go to college.

His high school band director thought Stanton, a trombone player, had the talent to make it at FAMU. But he warned him: "It will be different."

Stanton is white. FAMU is 94 percent black.

On any other college campus, Stanton, a husky 19-year-old interested in music and girls, would have blended in seamlessly. But by choosing to attend a historically black college, Stanton became a rarity in higher education: a white student on a black campus.

This year, about 4 percent of the 13,000 students at FAMU are white. That's down from almost 10 percent in 1990.

Many of the 550 white students who are at the school came for its well-regarded pharmacy, architecture or business programs. A few were attracted by the band or the chance to play a varsity sport.

"They fit in just like everyone else," says Ashley Graves, 19, a black freshman. "No one notices a difference."

But some white students say there is a difference. They get stares on campus. They hear jokes that whites can't dance, that they look odd in a gospel choir. When a white student climbs to a leadership post, there are complaints that it shouldn't be happening at a black institution.

"It's a culture shock," says Stanton, who lives on campus and says he sometimes sees only one or two white faces all day.

In the FAMU band, Stanton is such a curiosity that fans ask him for autographs. Others want to pose with him for photos.

"To have a white on the field dancing," he says, "it catches attention."

On his first day at FAMU, Ben Dougherty kept looking for another white face. He didn't see any. Finally, in his first class, he spotted a black woman he knew from church.

He waved. She kept walking.

Dougherty, one of the few whites ever to play quarterback at FAMU, had gotten his first taste of being an outsider. It's a sensation many white students say they feel when they arrive on the 118-year-old campus.

The feeling leaves them with a choice: integrate or separate.

Black students say most white students at FAMU fall into two groups. One shows up for class and leaves as soon as possible. The other plunges into campus life.

There are reasons for the divide: Many white FAMU students are older and less likely than traditional freshmen to seek out a social life on campus.

The other reason is race.

When Vickey Parker was an FAMU freshman five years ago, she wanted nothing to do with the campus. Most days, she headed straight from class to her off-campus apartment. Most weekends, she drove home to Orlando.

She considered transferring.

"As far as setting up a life here in Tallahassee, I wasn't interested in it at all," says Parker, who came to FAMU for its pharmacy program. "I was becoming acclimated to a world I had never been in. It was a growing period."

None of the black students made her feel unwelcome, she says. "It was me feeling uncomfortable."

Faith Crusor, a black pharmacy student, remembers Parker being surprised when they first met. She seemed taken aback by how friendly Crusor was.

"She said, "I didn't think you would be the way you are,"' Crusor recalls.

Dougherty, the quarterback, remembers feeling the same unease.

He says FAMU coaches told him before he arrived that he might face hostility. And when he won the starting job in 2003, alumni started grumbling. Practices suddenly got crowded as black students came to check out the white guy.

But once he started playing well, Dougherty says, people forgot about race. "They said it would be tough on me. But I didn't feel it was that tough."

Senior Keneshia Grant, who is black, says students don't care that Dougherty is white. They care that he wins.

"As long as Ben is doing what he needs to do, he is accepted, like anyone else," she says.

For many years, FAMU offered scholarships to minority students, which at this school means whites, Asians and Hispanics. That stopped some years ago, as did active recruitment of nonblack students.

It shows in the numbers.

Since 1990, as FAMU's total enrollment has grown, its pool of white students has shrank.

In 2001, the latest year for which national statistics are available, white students made up about 13 percent of the enrollment at public, historically black universities in the United States.

At FAMU, whites made up just 3.7 percent of enrollment, a number that has increased only slightly in years since.

FAMU isn't alone. Nationally, the number of white students is falling on black campuses, although not nearly as fast as at FAMU.

Why is FAMU different? And why isn't that cause for concern in a state where the governor holds a news conference every year to announce each uptick in minority enrollment on Florida's predominantly white campuses?

Because FAMU is different and always has been, education officials say.

"It's an historically black college, and it's going to stay that way," says Steve Uhlfelder, a white member of the Board of Governors, which oversees the state university system.

Carolyn Roberts, the board's white chairwoman, says white enrollment will increase at FAMU once the school fixes the many financial problems that have caused embarrassing headlines in recent years.

Roberts says she doesn't have a problem with FAMU's racial homogeneity.

"I am very comfortable with it," she says. "I think historically black institutions have been very important throughout our history."

That is certainly the case in Florida, where FAMU educated many of the state's black leaders during the long decades of segregation. Most of its faculty is black, which is important to many black students. In 1997, it became the first historically black school to be named College of the Year by Time magazine and the Princeton Review.

Administrators say FAMU plays an important role in a university system dominated by majority white institutions.

"Speaking only for myself, I think the predominantly white universities still have not maintained their mission to black students, and I don't see that happening in the near future," says Henry Kirby, FAMU's associate vice president and dean of student affairs. "Our mission is still very real and very relevant."

Black students say the trick is encouraging diversity while maintaining FAMU's identity.

"It's great that we have diversity," said Janalyn Moonie, a black senior, "but I don't want it to come to a point where we are not historically black."

On the quadrangle in the middle of campus, Moonie is running her fingers through the wispy hair of Michael Bean, a white freshman. Both are studying French.

"My Mi-cha-el," she tells him, as she plays with his goatee.

"I love Michael," she says, though it's a platonic love. Moonie, wearing hoop earnings and a sorority T-shirt that hangs above her midriff, says that Bean, a friend, isn't like most white students.

He belongs to the NAACP chapter on campus. And he is the only white member of the FAMU gospel choir.

"You have people like Michael," Moonie says, "who are more black than white."

The comment doesn't faze Bean, who is used to people, even friends, making stereotypical comments about what whites can and can't do.

"After they get to know me, they realize I am not that different," he says.

Bean says he joined the choir for the same reasons others do: He likes to sing. He says he chose FAMU for its journalism program and small campus. He didn't even consider nearby Florida State University, a predominantly white campus with three times as many students.

Even so, the choir faculty adviser checks in on Bean to make sure he's comfortable.

"Bless his heart," says Cornelius Ann Floyd, the adviser. "He's been hanging in there."

Stanton, the white band member, deals with many of the same issues. During band tryouts, black members predicted he would never master the intricate dance steps required to make the cut.

The reason: He is too white.

Stereotypes die hard, Stanton says.

"I don't want to sound cheesy," he says, "but you learn, "Don't judge a book by its cover."'

Now, as Stanton sits in the lobby of his dorm, black students come up to him with palms extended. Several members of the Marching 100, the nickname for the band, are heading out. They ask Stanton if he wants to come with them.

Later, he says.

"Man, that's the only white boy in the 100," a student yells.

Stanton shrugs. The guy is a friend, he says.

"I don't take offense. It's the way it is."

It's 10 p.m. on a Tuesday, and the Kappas are swaying to Destiny's Child. In an off-campus apartment, a row of female pharmacy students are throwing back their hands and tossing their heads to Lose My Breath. They are practicing a step dance for a Saturday formal for the Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

Parker, the white student from Orlando, walks into the room, back from a trip to Wal-Mart in her FAMU T-shirt. No one blinks.

By now, Parker is used to being the only white woman in the room.

Two years ago, Parker decided to run for president of the school's professional pharmacy association. If she won, she would be the first white to hold the post, which acts as the college's de facto student government.

She was nervous about running. She says some black pharmacy students eye white students with suspicion. They wonder whether white students actually care about FAMU or are just taking a seat that could have gone to someone who would get more out of being at a black school.

But no one ran against Parker, who was elected automatically.

No one seemed to care that another barrier had fallen.

Times researchers Caryn Baird and Kitty Bennett contributed to this report. David Karp can be reached at karp@sptimes.com or 727 893-8430.

[Last modified February 20, 2005, 01:13:59]