It’s often one of the first things Michael Sorrell does to start the day.
“I am thrilled to have been followed by one of our new students!!” tweeted Sorrell, president of Paul Quinn College, in Dallas, in early June 2015. “Welcome to the #QuinniteNation,” he continued, using the institution’s signature hashtag. “Your Dallas fam is waiting.”
The student responded with a pair of emojis, and Sorrell followed up: “What’s going on? We can’t wait to see you! Be safe on the trip. Call us if you need anything,” he wrote. The student said that a lot had happened, but that she was still coming, and couldn’t wait to get to the campus.
Historically black colleges are known for the family environment they offer, and the communal relationship between students and faculty members. But for a handful of black-college presidents, the relationship begins on social media — even before students set foot on the campus.
Sorrell has used that personal touch, alongside a range of ambitious endeavors, to increase enrollment at Paul Quinn and revive a college that many believed to be on life support.
“There are a lot of HBCU presidents who are not these detached figures,” says Steve D. Mobley, an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa who specializes in historically black colleges. “They are on the front lines and on the ground with regard to recruiting and encouraging students to come to their institution.”
Makola M. Abdullah, president of Virginia State University, sees social media as a responsibility of a campus leader. “Now, in this age, part of walking campus is walking Twitter, and that’s because the generation is looking down at their phones,” Abdullah has said. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it means that you have to be there also.”
And being there may help combat summer melt as well.
Abdullah “gets on Twitter every day and responds personally to students as soon as they say ‘I got accepted, I’m going to Virginia State,” says Mobley. “I don’t know what better recruitment tool you have than the president of your prospective university engaging you in social media.”
Among the black-college presidents also known for their social-media use are Walter Kimbrough, president of Dillard University; Roslyn Clark Artis, president of Benedict College; and David Wilson, president of Morgan State University. But it’s not only that the presidents engage students on social media; it’s how they do it.
For Sorrell, social media — particularly Twitter — has become a place to share his unfiltered thoughts, but he also uses Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. Twitter “allows me to communicate with people in my authentic voice,” he says. “And that’s important because if you come to Paul Quinn College, we want students to understand who we are, and I want you to understand who I am.”
“The worst thing you can do,” he says, “is use social media to create a persona that isn’t in fact yours.”
Adam Harris is a breaking-news reporter. Follow him on Twitter @AdamHSays or email him at adam.harris@chronicle.com.
