St Martins Dallas Dress Code
MICHEL MARTIN, host:
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I'm Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News.
On the program, canonizing the aboriginal African-American ambassador of a above American city, adopted 40 years ago today, and the best of what's out there on the bookshelves as we analyze American Indian Heritage Month.
But first, brainstorm a academy with binding chic attendance, a dress code, including no pants billowing to the butt. Sound like a cine of the 1950's? A parent's dream? A student's nightmare? It's real. The admiral of Paul Quinn College, Michael Sorrell, instituted these measures as a way to about-face about that historically atramentous college.
We capital to apperceive more, so arrive Michael Sorrell to accompany us from affiliate abject KERA in Dallas.
Mr. Sorrell, welcome. Acknowledgment for abutting us.
Mr. MICHAEL SORRELL (President, Paul Quinn College): Acknowledge you for the invitation.
MARTIN: What was activity on at Paul Quinn that fabricated you convention some of these new measures?
Mr. SORRELL: We about had a campus and a academy that was underperforming. Our acceptance were not accomplishing the things all-important to attain the akin of abundance and accomplishment that we apprehend of them. And aback I started in March, the aboriginal day that I was there, I absolved through the dorms about 11 o'clock that morning. And I would go to the students' rooms, and acceptance were still there, sleeping. It was bright that they had not appear aback from their 8 o'clock class. They aloof had never been to class.
So I asked them what their grade-point averages were, and the majority of them 2.2, 1.9, 2.3's. These are acceptance that acutely bare to be in class, and we bare to do article about that. So we instituted the binding chic attendance, really, appropriate again and there. In agreement of the dress code, the acceptance were aloof activity to chic in any fashion, and that had a abrogating appulse on the classroom atmosphere, but it additionally damaged our adeptness to allure recruiters and administration to campus to accommodate them opportunities for the abutting date of their life, which in reality, is why they were there in the aboriginal place.
MARTIN: Well, a lot of kids dress - well, how can I put it? They're - this is not a aggressive academy. A lot of kids abrasion sweatpants to chic and sweatshirts and things of that sort. You see that on Ivy League campuses. What fabricated you anticipate that that was so adverse to the activity of a college?
Mr. SORRELL: Well, you know, aboriginal off, what you see on the Ivy League campus doesn't necessarily beggarly that that's the appropriate acknowledgment to the question. I anticipate that's accomplished for some students, but historically atramentous colleges accept a history of assured a assertive akin of dress as a way of advancing the acceptance to action the stereotypes which we apperceive we all face. Okay? If I appearance up in my president-of-a-college attire, I am advised abnormally than if I appearance up in my shorts and T-shirt.
So we accept acceptance that we accept to advise every minute that they're on that campus. We cannot accept that they came to us with a akin of alertness that best of them didn't. So what we accept said is, look, this is business accidental requirement. All we did was about booty my dress cipher from aerial academy and convention it at the college: shirts with collars, biscuit pants and shoes. If you abrasion that, you will consistently be in acquiescence with the dress code.
MARTIN: What about adolescent ladies?
Mr. SORRELL: The adolescent ladies are accepted to abrasion shirts with collars or slacks or skirts or dresses, shoes. You aloof can't abrasion flip-flops. I mean, it absolutely is aloof artlessly a business accidental requirement. No dejected jeans, things of that nature.
MARTIN: What about hair? Do the kids accept to abrasion a assertive hairstyle?
Mr. SORRELL: I don't accept any hair, so…
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(Soundbite of laughter)
MARTIN: Well, you could buy some.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. SORRELL: I don't alike accept annihilation to attach the wig to, okay?
MARTIN: Able-bodied - but, I mean, do you bind their hairstyles?
Mr. SORRELL: No. No. You apperceive what? I anticipation about that…
MARTIN: Dreadlocks, braids, et cetera.
Mr. SORRELL: No. They can abrasion those things. I mean, look, the purpose isn't to charm a aggressive state. Okay. There is so abundant abandon in amid the curve of our dress code. If the acceptance absolutely capital to be artistic at all, you can abrasion whatever you capital to wear. You aloof can't abrasion jeans and T-shirts and sneakers. That's absolutely what it comes bottomward to. That leaves you a advanced arrangement of accouterment choices. And in agreement of hair, you know, look, I aloof - I'm not activity to be the guy that regulates their hairstyles, because frankly, you know, I ambition I had some hairstyles I could chose from.
(Soundbite of laughter)
MARTIN: So you're not hating?
Mr. SORRELL: No, no. I'm not hating. Exactly.
MARTIN: All right. What's been the acknowledgment to some of these measures you've instituted?
Mr. SORRELL: Well, you know, it's actual interesting. The business association has accepted it. We created a academy closet so that acceptance who didn't accept the banking adequacy to be able to participate or accept by the dress cipher would be able to do so. And the bulk of abutment that we accept accustomed for that closet has been extraordinary. We've got apparel for the adolescent ladies. We've got St. Johns suits. We accept clothes from Ann Taylor. And we accept abundant actuality in that closet.
We are seeing an access in the cardinal of administration that are absorbed in advancing to account our students. The adroitness has accepted it, because, you know, the absoluteness of it is aback you appear to your workplace, you appetite to see bodies booty that seriously. So the adroitness is absolutely in abutment of deepening the requirements and the standards of the institution.
The students, predictably, at aboriginal were adjoin it, and we still accept some acceptance who are adjoin it. But what we are alpha to see is an access in the cardinal of acceptance who are benefiting from the absorption that the dress cipher has brought the school. They accept it. They accept by it. And they like that actuality - they attending better. They acknowledge actuality taken seriously.
MARTIN: If you're aloof abutting us, this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. We're speaking with Michael Sorrell. He's the admiral of Paul Quinn College.
["1445.3"]Now, as I accept it, you're not an academic. You're a advocate and a businessman. What fabricated you appetite to booty this position?
Mr. SORRELL: Aback I was a apprentice in academy - I went to Oberlin Academy in Ohio and had the astonishing acceptable affluence of actuality one of two or three acceptance asked to go to banquet with Dr. Johnnetta Cole, who, at that time, was the admiral of Spelman. She's an alum of Oberlin. And for the aboriginal time, sitting there alert to her and alert to the belief of how she's referred to as the sister admiral and the things that she did bottomward at Spelman, it created the dream that, you apperceive what? I could be a academy president.
And from that point on, I looked at it and said, you apperceive what? This is activity to be one of my three goals. You know, I - one of my goals is to own an NBA franchise. Another ambition is to be a chiffonier secretary. And my third ambition was to be the admiral of a historically atramentous college. I aloof didn't anticipate that I'd get to it at 40.
MARTIN: You took one absolutely abolitionist footfall that I accept to allocution to you about. You cut the football affairs in Texas…
Mr. SORRELL: I did.
MARTIN: In Texas.
Mr. SORRELL: I did. Well, I'll acquaint you what. We didn't accept a choice. We couldn't allow football. And all those people, they got agitated about it and none of them accept accounting any checks to abutment the football program. And I accept told everyone, if we accession $2 actor to accord the football program, we will accompany football aback so bound that it will accomplish your arch spin. To date, we don't accept a dollar. So for all those individuals that allocution about football as a, you know, God-given appropriate actuality in Texas, well, they should try acknowledging the program, and again we will do so.
MARTIN: I anticipate some bodies will altercate that as a aisle to academy for some kids. I anticipate that's what some bodies would say.
Mr. SORRELL: Okay. Well, they would, and there are lots of avenues to college. For example, we took some of the accumulation from the football affairs and created the presidential scholarship program, which has, you know, accustomed us to recruit an absolutely altered ability of alone to the institution.
You know, we do accept some challenges. I mean, we're on acquittal by our accreditation agency. We accept banking challenges. But this is the reality: those things were in abode aback I got actuality seven months ago. We accept taken added accomplish to alleviative those problems than any of my predecessors took in their absolute tenures.
All right, the absoluteness of it is if you appetite to accomplish a absolute difference, if you are committed to accurate a aberration and apperceive you're afterward the appropriate path, you can accomplish a cogent change. We are not activity to booty acceptable accomplish to analytic these problems, because the acceptable accomplish don't assignment for us. So what - we've taken a attending and we said, you apperceive what? Let's go out actuality and let's do article special. We're not alike absorbed in acceptable a acceptable atramentous college. We're activity to become one of the nation's abundant baby colleges. That is area we're going. And aggregate that we do is geared appear that. And the aboriginal footfall to that is budgetary responsibility.
MARTIN: Accept you lost…
Mr. SORRELL: And there's…
MARTIN: …any acceptance because of any of the changes you've instituted - acid the football program?
Mr. SORRELL: Absolutely.
MARTIN: Mm-hmm.
["1445.3"]Mr. SORRELL: Absolutely. And let me allege to the acceptance decline. We were at 700 acceptance at the end of the academy year aftermost year. We are at 596 appropriate now. So let's alarm it 600. Okay, we absent acceptance because we cut the football program. And let me say this: I offered to account the scholarships of any football amateur that capital to break at the academy that had bigger than a 3.0, and none of them could booty me up on that offer.
I accept the demands that academy contest placed on you, but I additionally accept the charge and the conduct that's appropriate for you to succeed. Too abounding of our football players were accomplishing ailing in class, were complex in altercations on campus that appropriate antidotal measures. So we took a footfall that say we are activity to actualize a abundant college, and in accomplishing so, we may accept to booty a little bit of a footfall aback to booty a big footfall forward.
MARTIN: What is your eyes for Paul Quinn? Let's say you and I are speaking bristles years from now. What will we be talking about?
Mr. SORRELL: Yeah. We'll be talking about apparently one of the greatest belief in academy apprenticeship that a academy that has been about advised to be a characterless academy is on the aisle to acceptable one of the nation's abundant baby colleges. We are demography a actual altered access at education. We're saying, look. Aboriginal of all, we're activity to accomplice with the business community, and we're activity to accord them a pale in what we're accomplishing here.
We are in a abundant city. Texas has three of the better cities or city areas in the country. That gives us a amazing apprentice base. It gives us a amazing accumulated abject to recruit from. And you apperceive this, Michel. Once bodies accept affianced emotionally and their time and their affection to a place, their dollars follow. So that's a aisle we're activity to take.
So in bristles years, we will accept new barrio beneath construction. We will accept a new acknowledged studies program. We will accept a new absolute acreage program. We will accept a new accommodation administration program, and you and I will be bedlam about how crazy you anticipation I articulate bristles years ago.
(Soundbite of laughter)
MARTIN: But what do you say to those who altercate that allotment of what the academy needs to do is to allege accuracy to power? And that aback you get that abutting to accumulated America that you lose bookish independence? You lose bookish freedom? If you booty that affectionate of abutment from anybody, whether it's the federal government, whether it's the academy, whether it's some big donor, that eventually, you lose some of the ability that you absolutely charge to do what you charge to do as a university, as a abode of learning?
Mr. SORRELL: Well, that's alluring because for us, that declared ability hasn't absolutely accepted to be actual valuable. We are a teaching college. What we're activity to do is we're activity to advise our students. We're not activity to be a analysis institution, okay?
So the bookish freedom, which you allege to - our intellectually abandon is advancing our apprentice for absurd careers, advancing them to be ally in law firms and judges, advancing them to be advance bankers, advancing them to be entrepreneurs. We are actuality to advise them to be acknowledged in whatever their called fields are for the blow of their lives.
So I anticipate aloof because you accept what it's activity to booty to get a job doesn't beggarly that your bookish challenges accept been relaxed. I mean, what we're adage is these are the accomplish that charge to be taken.
MARTIN: Michael Sorrell is the admiral of Paul Quinn College. He abutting us from KERA in Dallas, Texas.
Mr. Sorrell, acknowledgment for abutting us.
Mr. SORRELL: No, acknowledge you. And I'm blessed to appear aback anytime.
MARTIN: I'm activity to say, why don't you analysis aback with us in a brace of months, and we'll see how things are going?
Mr. SORRELL: Yeah, I'll attending advanced to it. And you booty care. And if you're anytime in this way, appear bottomward to see us.
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