From HBCUs to success: out of school and in the real world, graduates excel in a variety of professions

WHEN IT COMES TO THE NATION'S HISTORICALLY BLACK COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES, the most-told success stories usually focus on famous folk of old, or Horatio Alger magnates who pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps. But what about the "average grad" who doesn't yet own the company?

On these pages are a handful of HBCU success stories of regular people who graduate, get jobs and become productive citizens. These graduates say they attended an HBCU to cultivate a sense of identity and community. And they say they wouldn't trade their HBCU experience for anything.

TCHERNAVIA ROCKER

Director of Human Resources, Harley-Davidson, Inc.

ALABAMA AGRICULTURAL AND MECHANICAL UNIVERSITY

Tchernavia Rocker, 33, a director of human resources for Harley-Davidson in Milwaukee, earned her master's in business administration from Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University, and she says she's heard all the negative stuff about HBCU graduates.

Her reaction? Phooey to all that, she says.

"I'm here today as a living example that HBCU education works," says the single woman who has been "blessed" to take care of her deceased sister's two young sons. "I think that there's a course of conversation that people have concerns about HBCUs, but I think that we demystify that myth every day."

Rocker has worked with Harley Davidson for seven years, and she's holding her own, but she still hesitates to call herself the quintessential HBCU success story. "I look at myself as becoming a success story," she explains. "The evolutionary journey doesn't end. For me, it's a continuum. On this continuum I'm headed in the right direction and committed every day to being better than 100 percent at everything I do--from my career standpoint and giving back to my local community and my own personal spiritual journey. I don't want to become complacent, thinking that I've arrived."

Michael Morris, 36, of Chicago, was laid off from his first accounting job because his bosses questioned his Grambling State University, education.

"I was laid off [from] that job because I was the one deemed the least credible because of my schooling," says Morris, who now owns his own consulting company. "Those are the things that attending an HBCU prepares you for. It allows you a better realization of what the marketplace is going to be like."

Morris was an accounting major when he graduated in 1995. He's now the director of consulting services for the Kansas City (Mo.) based GCM Con suiting Group, a job that affords him a swanky home in downtown Chicago.

Morris says he was never a straight-A student, but he succeeded nonetheless.

"I was not that 3.0 or 3.5 student at all," says Morris. "It's ironic because I look at a lot of people who were the 3.5 and 3.7 students, and just this chosen career path put me in a much better position than [they are], so it is strange."

Like for most HBCU graduates, the school--and the student body-never stopped talking about entrepreneurship. Good thing, since that's what ultimately keeps Morris getting paid. "When I graduated, most of the people were going to work for big-five firms, and I didn't really want to do that," says Morris. "My friends who did that didn't actually work, so I chose to go with small companies because I figured I'd learn more. And that's what I think prepared me to go out and do it on my own."

TOSHA DAVIS

Art Therapist

SPELMAN COLLEGE

Tosha Davis, 33, an art therapist from Owings Mills, Md., attended Spelman College and says she graduated in 1996. Back then, she was a French major who simply wanted to get away from white-washed Connecticut, where she grew up, and be in a place where she would be part of the majority.

After Spelman, an all-female, mostly Black institution in Atlanta, Davis got a master's degree from George Washington University, but she says her Spelman experience shaped her life by encouraging her to delve into entrepreneurism. Davis owns a private art therapy practice. "We were always encouraged to do our own thing, and be entrepreneurs and be strong women, and I think Spelman really helped mc to say 'Yep, I can do this," says Davis. "I think it was my professors saying it's OK to go out on your own and do things."

Being part of the majority was a major reason for attending Spelman, she says.

"It shaped me in so many ways," she says. "My self-esteem was raised because I was part of the majority."

JAMIL WALKER

Associate Director of Editorial Services/Media Relations

BMI Music Publishing

CLARK ATLANTA UNIVERSITY

Jamil Walker, 28, of Brooklyn, traded his home in Oakland, Calif., for a dorm room at Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta. He graduated in 2001 with a major in communications.

Now Walker, who is soon to get his master's degree from Fordham University in New York, is an associate director of editorial services/media relations for BMI Music Publishing. He was previously working with the Zomba Label Group.