Seeking Out Success: University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Shaun Harper expects his extensive research will create a new paradigm of how Black males adapt and succeed in college. It was in his high school years that Raymond Roy seriously thought about going to college. Raised largely by his grandmother in a tough, low-income neighborhood in north Philadelphia, Roy found encouragement from family members and a few college-bound friends.
“I had good grades, but I didn’t think college was something I could do until I saw some of my friends going for it,” he says. Roy’s college pursuit took him to Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania where he made the Dean’s List his freshman year.
Identified in the spring of his freshman year by campus administrators as a motivated high achiever, Roy took part in the National Black Male College Achievement Study, the largest-ever empirical study of Black male undergraduates.
