By Antonio Prado
Dover Post
Posted Jul 27, 2012 @ 02:04 PM
Dover, Del. —
Delaware State University Associate Professor Dr. Andrew Blake knows firsthand what challenges foreign students have while studying at an American college.
Blake is a native of Sierra Leone, West Africa, a former British colony, who earned a bachelor's degree in print journalism at Delaware State University as an undergrad.
Therefore, Blake decided to explore the “adjustment problems and experiences” of current, international students in his new book, “African Students Studying in America: Their Experiences and Adjustment Problems at an HBCU.”
His book investigates the experiences of African students studying at Delaware State University, a historically black institution.
DSU spokesman Carlos Holmes called the book “a rare study on Africans studying specifically at a historically black institution.”
Blake is a faculty member of the DSU Department of English and Foreign Languages.
“The idea of a book stemmed from a study I did because of the increased presence of international students at Delaware State University and my own personal experience at Delaware State University and Howard University [which he transferred from],” Blake said.
He interviewed 57 DSU students. While an overwhelming majority of African students stated that they have had a very good experience at DSU, a larger proportion of females than males stated that they have had good experiences.
“The African students stated that they had no problems making friends with African Americans in particular and Americans in general, although some of them said that they occasionally experienced subtle discriminatory comments,” he said.
Blake wrote this book “as a quick-read,” and he hoped it would be adopted by some colleges that have either an African or African American studies program.
“This book can be used alongside other textbooks for a course because it is an abridged version of a larger study,” he said.
Blake has presented papers at national conferences addressing the adjustment problems of international students on U.S. college campuses. His study is referenced in the Center for Immigration Studies website.
Blake has also served as a staff writer for newspapers in Delaware and has served in administrative positions at DSU and Lincoln University, Pa.
Source:
http://www.doverpost.com/homepage
Posted By: How May I Help You NC
Saturday, July 28th 2012 at 11:56AM
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