Incoming freshmen: Biases and stereotypes don't change FAMU's academic quality

Malcolm Barnes, Jordan Smith, and Stephen Whitted are three students who entered FAMU this fall as Presidential Distinguished Scholarship Award recipients. They told the Florida Times-Union that the biased viewpoints and stereotypes that are used to attack Florida's only public historically black university cannot change the facts concerning FAMU's academic quality.

From their op-ed entitled: "FAMU attracts bright scholars":

We are three incoming college freshmen who each scored in the top 5 percent of all students in the United States on PSAT/SAT.

We are entering Florida A&M University this fall as Distinguished Scholars.

When we tell people where we’ll be attending college, they have responded in one of four ways: total shock/disbelief, half-hearted interest with an underlying tone of disapproval, concern for our safety or the audacity to pop the question “Isn’t that an HBCU?” as if the fact that a school is a historically black college or university automatically lowers the quality of the education and services.


STEREOTYPES AN ISSUE 

These negative reactions can be attributed to negative stereotypes, common lack of knowledge about HBCUs and recent distractions in the media regarding non-academic functions of the university .

They have served to keep many highly qualified students from considering Florida A&M University despite the fact that the school possesses an outstanding faculty, ample funds and the robust infrastructure necessary to maximize the potential of such highly qualified students.
We almost missed a great opportunity because of such negative bias.

Read the full op-ed here at the Florida Times-Union.