INSIDE HIGHER ED — Compton College created a new position focused on the academic needs of Black and Latino men. Campus leaders believe they’re at the forefront of a new and long overdue trend. Antonio Banks was eager to join a robust Black student community as an undergraduate at California State University, San Bernardino. He was thrilled to be surrounded by other Black men “who were excited about education” like he was. But when he returned to campus as a sophomore, many of those students were missing. He heard they stopped out for different reasons: some were stuck in remedial courses and put on academic probation after struggling to complete them, while others felt alienated and isolated on campus. “I’ll never forget that feeling of seeing them all wiped out in that first year, and it wasn’t for lack of intelligence or lack of capacity,” Banks said. Those memories stayed with him, and now, more than a decade later, Banks, 34, is the first director of Black and males of color success at Compton College. His role, which began in late November, was created explicitly to ensure Black men stay enrolled, succeed academically and graduate. The experience of having so many classmates leave college without graduating “really sparked my interest in trying to make educational pathways more viable for Black men,” he said.