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The numbers speak for themselves.

Of the approximately 40,000 students enrolled at Prince George's Community College in Largo, 62 percent are female and only 38 percent are male.

To help even out those numbers, the Largo school has launched the college's Diverse Male Student Academy, an extracurricular program that aims to help develop male, minority participants as leaders through weekly workshops.

The academy, which kicked off with a program overview Feb. 24, is open to the school's black and Hispanic male students ages 17 to 27 because this demographic often is disappearing and missing from higher education, said Brian Hamlin, the college's manager of diverse male student initiatives and the program's leader.

"We want to help them realize their goals and dreams," Hamlin said. "We are going to increase participant knowledge of social, cultural and economic drivers."

Charlene Dukes, the college's president, said the academy is one way the college is taking a proactive approach to retaining its male students.

The proportion of the male students at the school has not drastically changed in the past 15 years but has continued to be considerably lower than women's enrollment. In 1995, the school was about 35 percent male, in 2000 the school was about 34 percent male and in 2009, the school was nearly 38 percent male.

"Over the years, the number of men attending college has decreased while [the number of] women has increased," Dukes said. "At Prince George's Community College we are looking at that — the success rates of men — [and] determining that coming to college and being successful in college can impact their careers and quality of life after college."

The topics that will be highlighted at weekly workshops, which begin Tuesday, include the importance of personal goals and development, education, time management, career readiness and networking, communication skills and financial literacy, Hamlin said.

Hamlin said he will run the workshops, and experts will be brought in when needed. The first academy, open to up to 100 students, will run through the end of the spring semester, with the first full year of the program beginning in the fall.

"We want you to stay [in college] and thrive," Hamlin said to the nearly 75 students who attended the program overview Feb. 24. "We're going to teach you to step up and be leaders. If you want to be successful, be involved, be about it."

Dukes is among nearly 150 presidents of predominately black community colleges who are members of the Presidents' Round Table, a virtually based organization for leaders of black community colleges that aims to increase the success and graduation rate of black students enrolled in community colleges.

As a result, the college launched the Diverse Male Student Academy to increase the graduation rate and success of minority male students enrolled in the college, Dukes said. A version of the program is at only three other community colleges, in Texas, California and Illinois.

"This is a regional approach to deal with the collegiate success of a diverse male student population," Dukes said to the students at the program overview. "Your success is our success. Thank you for being concerned about your futures."

Tyjaun Lee, the college's vice president for student services, said she and Hamlin spent the fall conducting research, which included talking to the school's current male students about their needs and experiences on campus and researching program components, both online and in a library, of what makes diverse males successful on college campuses.

Lee said the research showed that diverse males are disappearing from higher education because of their everyday realities, which may be coming from a single-family home or being around peers who are selling drugs.

"It's just teaching them that their current situation does not have to determine their destination," she said. "We want to give [them] coping skills to navigate that and move beyond."

The end result was the development of the academy. Lee said the academy's goal is to "guide them on a path to success."

Terrence Minor, 20, of Kettering said he is excited for the program.

"There's a lot of benefits you can get — [such as] respect for yourself and others," Minor said. "I feel that education is a major issue and people don't take it seriously."

 Oluseyi Oyegunie, 20, of Largo said he hopes to gain networking skills.

"I think that school in general can give you a lot of primary skills, but networking, if you know people, you can get far," he said. "The feeling you get when you see everyone together [is positive]. If this is a positive turnout, it will be a good way to exemplify why could happen in the future."