REACHING THE "TALENTED TENTH"

The under-utilization of the academic library within academic programs targeted to retain urban students in institutions of higher learning warrants close scrutiny from all segments of the higher education community. In general, today's urban student has not been prepared to manage the demands of academic work. Pre-freshman and freshman year programs are designed, for the most part, to facilitate the urban students' transition into the rigors of the academy. Ironically, remediation, basic/fundamental skills, and "non-academic" instruction are still viewed as ancillary to the overall educational mission of most traditional four year academic institutions. Consequently, urban students are being swept into the academic stream unable to navigate successfully the torrents of the faculty's academic expectations.

Many pre-freshman/freshman year program administrators pay homage to the importance of using the academic library, but few actually integrate it within the program's curriculum. Ask any one of them about the library and they will sing its praises. Look more closely at how they actually integrate it within their programs and you will find very few go beyond the traditional library orientation concept or the two to three library instructional class sessions.

I am concerned about the continued peripheral usage of the academic library within programming for the recruitment, transition, and retention of the urban student. As a Senior Academic and Career Advisor, I deal, on a daily basis, with many intelligent, under prepared urban students who have not been equipped with the skills necessary to negotiate the complexities of finding, analyzing, and using effectively knowledge and information.

In addition, I am concerned also that there is not a more cooperative, working relationship between library professionals and the education professionals concerned with the recruitment and retention of urban students. Professionals in both areas need to collaborate and debunk the "unapproachable mystique" surrounding the academic library. They need to work together to mentor what could be considered the backbone of the information literacy movement--the independent learner.

Moreover, retention and graduation of students is also a top priority concern on most campuses and, these days, with the Federal Government as well. All segments of the academic community, including the staff of the academic library, need to be pro-active in planning retention programming. The best resource on campus to create the impossible is, in my opinion, the academic library. Its resources challenge our imagination, but, more importantly, provide windows of opportunity for all students--particularly urban students--to become the drivers of their own destinies; learners of independent means and social contributors to the welfare of the 21st century.

We have been experiencing the impact of the Information Age for some time now. It serves continually as our wake-up call to the realities of the mis-educated, the mis-informed, and the deprived. Sometimes I wonder: is anybody out there really listening?

I would be extremely interested in hearing from librarians and other professionals who share some, if not all, of the above concerns and have "pearls of wisdom" to offer regarding collaborative efforts among educational professionals that would enrich the education of today's urban student. Suffice it to say: