Thursday, November 17, 2011

CUNY Panel Explores Challenges Facing Black Gay Males in Higher Education

CUNY Panel Explores Challenges Facing Black Gay Males in Higher Education: Taking its title from renowned author James Baldwin, on Wednesday, the City University of New York’s (CUNY) Black Male Initiative (BMI) presented the panel discussion “Nobody Knows My Name: Exploring Challenges Facing Black Gay Men in Higher Education” on Thursday.

CUNY BMI is a university wide initiative designed to increase the enrollment and retention rates of students from groups that are severely underrepresented in higher education.

“There’s one thing that (author and scholar) Henry Louis Gates Jr. always says that I love. ‘There are about 35 million Black people in the United States and, therefore, there are 35 million different ways of being Black.’ I think that this forum and others we’re going to have are a reflection of that,” said Elliott Dawes, director of CUNY BMI.