School of Education

Carl Darnell

Ph.D., Higher Education

A Diversity of Experiences in Higher Education

Growing up in Huntsville, Alabama, Carl Darnell experienced firsthand the difference that higher education could make in a person’s life. Now he wants to show others what higher education can do to improve their lives.

“In my junior year of undergrad I realized I had more of a soul and heart and passion for higher education. That’s the place where I found the majority of my opportunities.”

Carl is preparing for his career in higher education student affairs by attending and working at universities and colleges in different regions of the United States. His undergraduate and master’s degrees are from Tennessee State University in the south, he worked at Colin College in Dallas out west, and now he’s getting his Ph.D. in the Midwest.

“In my junior year of undergrad, I realized I had more of a soul and heart and passion for higher education. That’s the place where I found the majority of my opportunities,” says Carl. “And what I want to do is show people opportunities. I had come up with a plan to work in higher education. I wanted to go to every different region in the United States and work at every different type of college.”

“I grew up very poor in Alabama. I slept on a couch with three of my brothers. I lived in a trailer with eight of my family members. And then, coming to college, and going into that dorm room, I swan dived into my bed. I loved hearing students and my professors talk about things I had never heard of. My first time on an airplane was through my university. My first time doing so many things was because of college.

“If the people where I was from had this opportunity, they could do so much more. The opportunities and the exposure that get from college are unmatched,” he says.

Carl decided to apply to IU’s Ph.D. program in Higher Education for two reasons—it’s a highly ranked program, and it’s located at a large public university in the Midwest.

“My plan is combine all the different things I’ve learned from all these different regions and different institutions and to take that to a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in the south. I want to use all the best practices I’ve learned from these institutions to benefit that institution.”

On thing Carl has learned is that many black students in the Midwest think differently about race than students from the south.

“When I got here for orientation, I walked into a small classroom with 12 to 14 students, and four of them were black, and I thought, ‘this is fantastic,’ it’s a very diverse program,” says Carl. While Carl was pleased with the diversity in the school, he wanted to see more diversity overall in the student population at IU as well as more support for programs for minority students.

As a graduate assistant and mentor in the Hudson & Holland Scholars Program, Carl has been working with undergraduate students from underrepresented minority groups. “For the last two years, I’ve been trying to open up my students to feel free and comfortable talking about race, and to talk about their issues and find the proper channels to find support and to increase the awareness of minority students on campus. As a result we’ve been able to get more staffing for the Hudson & Holland program and more minority students are involved in committees on campus.”

“What I’ve learned from talking to my students is what appeals to them and what doesn’t. When I was in Alabama, Texas, and Tennessee, I could say something to my students like, ‘Hey, guys, the black student is about to have a program and you should come out. There are going to be a lot of black students there.’ And they would get really excited and say ‘yes, we’re coming.” Here, when I’ve said, ‘Hey, guys, there’s about to be a program for black students at the culture center,’ students would start frowning—my black students—and they would say, ‘yeah, I don’t know about that.’ I’ve had to learn to make a different kind of appeal for black students in the Midwest to get them involved.”

While look for guidance in mentoring students, Carl was able to turn to his peers in the Higher Education and Student Affairs Program, Ghangis Carter, the director of the IU School of Education Office of Recruitment and Retention for Underrepresented Students, and IU School of Education Dean Gerardo González.

“Dean González has always been a big proponent of diversity, and I’ve valued his views and opinions as I tried to get students more involved in advocacy for underrepresented students,” says Carl.