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When Howard Rambsy II, PhD, Distinguished Research Professor in Southern Illinois University Edwardsville's Department of English Language and Literature, began working at the university in 2003, Earleen Patterson, PhD, Associate Vice Chancellor and director of Student Opportunities for Academic Results (SOAR), invited him to make a brief visit to a class for first-year African American men and offer a few suggestions. That brief visit turned into more than 20 years of teaching, listening to and learning from successive groups of students.

Those experiences are the subject of “The Convergence: When Collegiate Black Men Meet African American Literary Studies,” a new book by Rambsy. The book follows the development of GAME, a program for first-year Black men, and considers what happens when students encounter African American literature early in their college careers.

GAME began as a study skills course before Rambsy and his colleague Stefan Bradley, PhD, arrived at SIUE. In 2004, their second year at the university, they started co-teaching the class, bringing Black history and literature into its curriculum. After Bradley left the university, Rambsy continued teaching with the program. In 2012, the class received a formal designation as an African American literature course, allowing students to earn credit toward a general education humanities requirement.

Across those years, Rambsy has introduced students to fiction, poetry, essays, rap lyrics, comics and visual art. They have interpreted difficult works, debated cultural questions, and drawn connections between the material and their experiences at college. Just as often, students have brought their own interests and observations into the classroom, influencing what Rambsy teaches to later groups.

“I began by bringing literary works and artistic productions to the class, but each new group of students brought questions and perspectives that changed how I understood and taught those works,” said Rambsy. “The book is about what we learned together.”

“The Convergence: When Collegiate Black Men Meet African American Literary Studies” grew from Rambsy’s conviction that first-year Black men deserve opportunities for in-depth intellectual work, alongside the advising and other support that help students navigate college. It also reflects what he learned in informal conversations with GAME students outside class, where they spoke candidly about university life and their courses.

A 2021 SIUE report gave new attention to the program. It found that participation in GAME was the strongest predictor of persistence and graduation among Black men students in its analysis. GAME participants graduated at higher rates than Black men at SIUE who had not enrolled. The finding helped prompt the university to expand the program, which grew from serving about 25 students annually to about 200.

Rambsy does not attribute GAME students’ higher graduation rates to the literature course alone. The program also provides tutoring, advising and a community of support. “The Convergence” looks closely at one part of that larger effort: the time students and a professor spend reading, interpreting, questioning, and exchanging ideas together.

The book asks educators to consider what Black men students can gain when a humanities course is built into their first semester, and what their contributions can teach the people designing those courses. For Rambsy, the title names an encounter that has shaped both sides of the classroom. The students arrived with knowledge and questions of their own; African American literary studies gave them more to work with, while they helped Rambsy rethink how he teaches it.

Earlier this year, Rambsy published “Writing Black Panther: Ta-Nehisi Coates and Representation Struggles.” Last month, he and his brother, Kenton Rambsy, published “One Black Writer at a Time: How Literary Coverage Shapes Reception.”

PHOTOS: Howard Rambsy II, PhD, Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature; “The Convergence: When Collegiate Black Men Meet African American Literary Studies,” published by SUNY Press.